Rubble & Ruin
by Daedalus30185
Summary: A novelization of the first Mass Effect game that weaves in and out of cannon. Rated M for language, violence, more language, blood & gore, still more language, yet more violence and explicit sexual scenes.
1. Chapter 1, Prologue 1: Home Fires

**AUTHOR'S NOTES!**

_Hey everyone. Hope you like this. My first real go at making a major writing piece. I have the basics laid out in my head but between classes and my own brain it'll usually be a while between uploads. Let me know what you think of it and if you have any ideas PM me. I hope you enjoy this, and if all goes well, I'll post 2 in a few months (current guesstimate) and 3 will probably be somewhere around half a year, if not more._

_Again, hope you enjoy it._

* * *

**CHAPTER 1**

**PROLOGUE 1 - HOME FIRES**

My name is, or rather was Shepard. John Shepard, Commander in the Systems Alliance. Don't have much need for my name or my rank anymore. I should probably explain that. Ok, from the beginning… I've spent years trying to forget a lot of it, but it will probably sort a few things out later on. So, let's get this show on the road shall we?

I grew up on the outskirts of Mindoir's capital New Toulon. Was really just a small agro world out in the Traverse. With my mother being a xeno-botonist and father ex-alliance, I guess it really isn't a surprise that we lived on one of the frontier rock. We had a two acre farm a few miles out from the capital. It was nice and quiet. For a while anyways.

It was, three or four months after my sixteenth birthday when everything burned. I was working on one of our neighbors' farms when it happened. It was right around midday; I just finished weeding nearly a square acre and was heading back home for lunch. Dad was in New Toulon helping the alliance with something or other (even after his tour he still did odd jobs for them once in a while to get us a few extra credits) and Mom was taking a few notes on some of the crops we were growing and making lunch for us. We were just sitting down when the warning alarms went off. They were hooked to the colony and were used for only one thing: an invasion.

My mother went for Dad's old Predator pistol, flipped the table and told me to hide and not to come out until it was safe by her reckoning. I crawled under my bed in the back room and lied there for what felt like an eternity. I could hear distant screams as some race did who knows what to the other colonists, my neighbors, my friends. Then came the gunfire. They finally came to our house. After several back and forth bursts, there was a long string of fire. Sounded like a rifle, and someone, a man, was screaming all kinds of obscenities Mostly they were to the theme of "four-eyed slaver scum" (which meant it was Batarians), along with some… more than uncivil slurs and insults. It took a little while before I realized, it was Dad! I still haven't figured out how (though mostly I've been trying to forget the event in its entirety) he managed to get all the way from the far side of New Toulon and to our outskirt farm with who knows how many of those bastards trying to kill him along the way. He made it back home and all would be fine. Unfortunately endings like that only happen in movies.

He took two backwards steps into the house, then collapsed. I still don't remember if it was from exhaustion or his… wounds. My mother fell to him. Crying, screaming. She tried to pull him away but was too late. They burst in, shooting my father several more times to ensure he was dead. They then proceeded to… force my mother to tell them where others were hiding: neighbors, friends. Family. They said they'd spare her if she gave them up.

"Screw you, you fucking four-eyed pigs." She snarled to them with the hint of a cackle in her voice, spitting her own blood in one of their faces. And they shot her right there. They died in the home they raised me in. The home they had built and planned to grow old and pass away in. Well they did, just not the way they thought.. I'm sorry, with everything that's going on I've been getting more and more stuck in my memories.

The bastards then started turning the house over, trying to find a hint of where someone might be. I tried to be strong. To stay where I was, quiet and immobile. I guess I let out a whimper 'cause one of them walked right in and flipped the bed over. He screamed at me, grabbed my arm and went to pull me up. After that everything went… almost blank. Except for the rage. I still remember it clearly. That everything I saw needed to die, painfully so. A pure, unfiltered, primal rage.

All I can hazily remember are a couple of moments frozen in time but… I can still hear it all… but memories link. I remember my body glowing a bright blue like I was on fire. I ripped my arm away and his went flying away from his body. I punched him in the head and it just exploded like a grenade. I charged out of the house going from one Batarian to the next, slamming them into walls, ripping them apart. Just… decimating them. I finally cooled off near somewhere around the spaceport in the center of New Toulon. It was there I saw what they were really doing: they were processing humans to be taken. Shoving them into animal cages and loading them on ships or just murdering them. I could see one of my friends, Dylan and his sister Sarah. I had always had a crush on her, but never did anything about it. Picking up a rifle that was lying on the ground, I still don't know if it was one of the slavers' or Alliance, I planned on… heh. I wasn't planning anything really. All I had was just a basic thought of "Save them. For god's sakes, save _someone_."

I charged them screaming. Nothing intelligible. No actual words, just shouting at the top of my lungs. I barely got a few steps before they started killing everyone who wasn't right next to their ships. Something spooked them and it certainly wasn't me. I tried running faster, but my legs just turned to jelly. I couldn't move. Barely stand. They killed Dylan and took Sarah onboard. In less than a minute, nearly 100 people were dead. As their ships left all I could do was watch helplessly. I couldn't save anyone. I couldn't protect my family or my friends. I failed all of them. Nearly two dozen ships with people I knew most of my life were gone.

As their ships passed above the few clouds in the sky, several contrails joined from behind me, then broke into more. _Oh no. God no. Please don't be—_each of the Batarian ships turned to bright and orange lights when the missiles connected to them. I fell down, crying. Wailing in agony. I don't know how long I lied there shivering in the hot sun, crying out every tear my body could until a couple of Alliance soldiers found me. I didn't even acknowledge them. One of them carried me back to a shuttle. I think his name was… Zabeta? Something like that. Zabaleta! That was it. He didn't say anything. At least I don't think he did. Just… was there. I should have kept in contact with him. Found some way to say "thanks". _*sigh*_ A lot of things I should have done right. A lot of things I should have done differently.

I don't even remember the ride back. I was still in shock. Sitting in a bunk, sharing a room with a couple of the other survivors across Mindoir. All I did was sit there and go through my head of everyone I lost: my parents, Hannah and Richard; my "partners in crime" Dylan and Jonas… everyone just… gone. The Alliance decided to ship me to my Uncle back on Earth. Didn't even know I had any extended family. Guess he and Dad had one hell of a falling out when he married Mom. Only explanation I can think of to this day. By the time I got back my head was straightened out enough to register what was going on around me, but I was lusting after revenge. I was going to enlist and go out and kill every Batarian I ran across. Probably one of the worst reasons to join the Alliance.

Tried to get out from under my Uncle a couple of times and enlist. Good old' Uncle Jack found me every time before I could get to a recruiting officer. Pissed me off to no end at the time. He held on to me a couple of years after I turned 18. Cooled me off, trained me to fight hand-to-hand, and helped continue my studies. Completely pulled me out of the near suicidal path I had set myself on. For four and a half years he put me back together in his own way.

Officially, he was just an engineer in the Alliance, but I always suspected it was more than that. Specifically the infamous ICT (Interplanetary Combative Training) also referred to as the N7 program. He slipped me his combat knife the day he finally let me enlist with the Alliance. Took it with me every time I strapped my armor on. Not sure why, but command eventually let me modify the torso piece of my armor to include a knife sheath. Made it much easier to grab when I went for hand-to-hand.


	2. Chapter 2, Prologue 2: Paradise Falls

**Chapter 2:**

**Prologue-2 Paradise Falls**

After ten months of training in ICT, the other trainees and I had reached N3 ranking in the villa, with a bit of a range in our naval rankings. Being the youngest of the group by a bit of a significant amount, I was shall we say, looked down on by the others in the squad. Our CO, Major Kevin Marks, who was N7, was rather impressed though.

We were on Elysium, heading for the outer edge of the Traverse for more training. Once we reached N6, Marks was to take us out into the Terminus for the final stage of training: intensive live-fire missions in more than a dozen hot zones.

Us trainees, myself, Staff Lieutenant Anton Makarov, and 1st Lieutenant Caroline Schwinn were lounging at a local bar, reclaiming some of our non-classified exploits trying to impress the yokels enough for free drinks and hopefully, a uh… better view of the local sights and population. Our XO, Commander Maria Hill (N6) told us as long as we get back to in orbit by 0821 EST (Earth Standard Time) when our ship was to leave for the outer Traverse, we were free agents. She was always cold to us but, fair. Never much liked her but I always respected her for that.

We finally gave in around two am, called for a shuttle back to the Overwatch station in orbit. Climbing into our bunks, we blissfully drifted off into a drunken sleep planning on getting some more on the ride to the outer systems. But there we weren't lucky enough to sleep it off.

Every warning alarm went shortly after 5 am, being routed up from Elysium. It was another damned invasion alarm. A massive slaver fleet from the Terminus was breaking through the orbital stations and going after Elysium's population. Being one of the farthest out, Overwatch station was one of the first hit, and hard. Though we were already waking up quickly, Hill thought it was too slow, so she threw us out of our beds and on to the floor telling us to move our drunken asses and to get to the orbital drop pods. Ironically, orbital jumps were next up on the training schedule. "No shuttles ma'am?" Schwinn asked as she threw her shirt on.

"Station's getting to heavily swarmed and there're platoons worth of ships landing on Elysium RIGHT FUCKING NOW, SO MOVE IT!"

We ran for the armory, dawning full Onyx armor, grabbing heavy amounts of ordinance (10 omni-modifiable grenades, two strips of remote explosives, along with a complete weapons load out) and ran for the ODPs down the hall. Marks was inputting the landing zone locations on the command console and told us to grab any pod and that we would be briefed on en route. All five of us climbed into those steel coffins and plummeted to Elysium along with a heavy ammunition and equipment pod.

Marks actually did begin the briefing as we plummeted towards Elysium at hundreds of feet per second. "All right, we've got over a hundred slaver ships on Elysium with more on the way. Overwatch station isn't going to hold out much longer so we need to try and draw the heat off of them from the ground. When we land we're going to—" his transmission cut to static, and Hill screamed. I looked up to where his pod was and saw it missing, replaced with an orange-white fireball with debris arcing out like a grenade blast. Our equipment pod was missing too. They must have collided and somehow our ordinance went off. Things only got worse from there.

The explosion was seen from the ground and the anti-air defenses that were once used to protect the colony from its intruders were turned on its now saviors. They started firing up at us, clipping Hill's pod. A round must have hit the control chip in the pod because her door burst and pressure change sucked her out before she could scream. Unfortunately, her comm was still link to the drop pod so we could hear her until she hit the ground. I still have nightmares because of it.

We landed down about a click away from Elysium's capital with no idea what we were supposed to specifically do. The one person who definitely knew was dead, long-range communications were jammed and even if they weren't, Marks' indicated that Overwatch probably isn't in one piece anymore and to add to it, we all had different ideas on what we should do. So we drew straws. Loser took command and guess who was the poor sap who got that job was. I decided it would be best for us to head into the city. I figured that we'd be able to get an idea on how the slavers were operating, and maybe link up with some of the local garrisons on Elysium.

We climbed up on top of the buildings and moved roof to roof. Not so good for cover, but it was difficult to be spotted from the ground and let us keep a better view on any incoming ships in the area. After running top to top on the outskirts for nearly twenty minutes, we finally came across a small patrol of slavers who were about to execute a squad of Alliance marines. We needed information and we couldn't just let them die, so we jumped them. Literally.

I pulled my pistol as did Schwinn and Makarov, motioning them to fire on one and started counting down on my fingers. _Three_. I holstered my pistol without the other two seeing. _Two. _I unsheathed my knife. And instead of "one", I dropped down driving my knife into one of the Batarian's heads. It was so tightly embedded that he just stood there. I re-drew my pistol but I was a little slow. Makarov and Schwinn had already killed the slavers.

The moment I jumped they started shooting. Seven dead salvers, no marine casualties. The first win of the day. "Captain Marshal West, 643rd Marine division, EOD and electronics specialist. Thanks for the save sir." He said saluting.

I returned his salute. "We're the ones who should be saluting. Operations Chief John Shepard. ICT. The angels on my shoulders are Staff Lieutenant Makarov" He simply nodded. "And First Lieutenant Schwinn. ICT as well."

"Hey there boys. Having fun?"

"Oh fucking dreadnoughts full of fun. Our orders were to rendezvous with the 428th and bring the defensive towers back up at a sub-station three clicks inside the city while some spec ops soldiers cleared out an enemy strong point next to it. Guess you're them. Problem is we haven't heard from them in an hour and the rest of our unit is KIA."

"Well we're definitely deep into plan 'F'." I could see he didn't know what I was talking about. "Plan 'F'. As in we are totally f—"

"Got it." He said with a grimaced smile. "Umm… with all due respect, my men and I are far better engineers than soldiers. I can safely say we'd all feel better if your squad took command." _Great. Just great. Seven more people I'm responsible for._ I never liked being responsible for the lives of anyone other than myself. Was easier to be just me. I do my job, I do it well and everyone lives. It was simple and I very much liked simple.

"Ok, so do you know where the strong point and sub-station are?"

"Yes sir. There's a large contingent holed up in the Altair hotel. Sits all around the substation which is in the massive courtyard in the center of the hotel. Large shuttle pad on the top, long lines of sight and no fucking cover anywhere near. And only access to the substation is across the plaza, going through the hotel itself."

I slapped my hand across my face and let it slide down. "Fuck. Fuck. Double fuck. All right. Let's get somewhere a little less conspicuous." We headed in further into the city, taking a fairly direct route to the Altair hotel. Though we encountered more slaver squads, we were able to save a dozen or so people who were being kidnapped.

We took cover in Ceres café's kitchen about forty meters from Altair in about an hour. The place looked like it was a warzone. We could hear shuttles landing and leaving almost every five minutes. They were either dropping off more slavers or taking people. Or both. I had to focus hard a couple of times to push the memories of Mindoir out of my head. "All right captain, tell me what you know about the hotel and station."

"Well as you can tell, the hotel is twenty stories tall. No cover from here on as I said. _If_ my team and can get into the substation it's basically a fallout bunker. The thing can just about withstand a shot from one of our dreadnoughts. The problem will be getting in and starting it up. If our turrets are down it means they're in there. Not to mention it'll take a few minutes and we won't be able to hide the power. They'll be all over us before we're half done. But once the systems are running we can just about put the colony on complete lockdown. No one will move without us knowing about it."

"No. They won't. Schwinn will clear it out. You'll stay behind her and follow her orders as if they came from Hackett himself. Makarov and I will clear the hotel until you flip the switch. Then the LT joins us and we hold the entrance till you have everything running. Once it is, we'll draw them in and take them out."

"What's our challenge and response sir?" Schwinn asked. _Right. Code set to keep us from shooting each other._

I mulled it over for a minute, until a smartass idea came to mind and a wicked grin to my lips. "Challenge is 'Ground'. Response: Pounders'."

"GROPOS. Funny sir." GROPOS was a common slang used by the Navy to refer to Marines; the only good thing they could do was hit the dirt. I continued on with the plan on how we were going to draw any Batarians in the area off so the engineering team could get through undetected.

"Everyone clear?" A quiet unison of "yes sir" followed. "Ok" I took a deep sigh. This was a loose and shitty plan across every piece of it.

Schwinn and the 643rd remained in the café, but moved up into the seating area so they knew when it was clear as Makarov and I ran low and quick into the lobby. "Ready?"

"Just for the record, this is a stupid fuckin idea." He whispered

"I know."

"No, I mean by _your_ standards."

"Hey! My standards are just as high as yours Makarov. And are we clear?"

"Da. We're clear."

"Then let's start this party." I hit 'broadcast' switch for the whole building and lifted the mic to my mouth. "Hello you worthless scum fuckers. This is Operations Chief Johnathan Shepard of the Systems Alliance Marine Corps speaking. I have just one question for you all: how piss poor does your vision have to be for you to need four eyes? Seriously? Even drunk with one eye shut I could still shoot straighter than you. If anyone wishes to dispute this claim, you're more than welcome to come and talk it out with me. You worthless puddles of degenerate toad piss. I'll be in the movie room on the fifth floor. Oh, and I promise to comfort your wives very, _very_ thoroughly when you're shipped back home in little match boxes. Kisses." With that, I flipped the switch back to off.

"Did you really have to throw that last part in?"

"No. But it felt right. The rest of it didn't seem like it was quite enough. Come on, we'll need to set a KZ up right outside the room. They'll be there any minute."

We started heading for the stairs. But Makarov stopped me. "Wait, I have an idea that won't actually get us in a world of shit." Without further explanation, he walked over to the elevators and put a motion sensor charge at the entrance for both of them and remotely activated the sensor. "In case they want to use the lift." He said with a nonchalant shrug.

We hit the stairwell and started moving up to the fourth floor. "And you say I'm a crazy mother fucker."

"No. I _know_ you're a crazy mother fucker."

"You now Mak, you just might not be a complete dick headed douche after all."

"Two things: one, don't _ever_ call me 'Mak'." We passed the second story. "And two, I am nothing less than a perfect spectacle of Russian breed organic killing machine." _Yeah this guy isn't so bad after all._

"Shouell! Kren täk!" _FUCK!_ We both raised our hands up and turned to face him slowly. "You! Guns, on the floor."

"Just... Can I say one thing?" I asked him. "You know last words and all?"

He muttered a few words below his breath that the translator couldn't pick up. "Fine. But make it quick."

"Lucy…" I said with a Cuban accent. A small hole in the wall blew open and the Batarian flipped sideways over the railing and fell to the sub-basement level; dead before he hit the floor.

"Have I got some esplaining to do?" Schwinn said over the comm line.

"You almost did. So it looks like thermal is pretty good. We got anything below us?"

"No. They're coming down from around eight and above."

"All right. Head to the substructure in two minutes. Let's go Mak."

"I thought I said don't call me that. Prick."

We proceeded to the fourth floor and moved under the movie room and placed remote explosives on the celling. "All right, we'll move up. You get comfy in the projector room. I'll rope 'em the rest of the way in."

"You _are_ a dumb bastard. Thanks." He wrapped with a cheeky grin.

"Just don't throw it too early."

"It'll be fi—AAAUGGHH!" Makarov was shot from behind us soon as we got back into the hallway. I emptied half a dozen shotgun rounds from 'Gretchen' into both sides of the hallway. I never saw who it was who shot him; just heard a thud and saw blood start to pool in the center of the hall.

"Aw shit. Hold on man."

"No. No I don't think so."

"Just shut up and let me get some medi-gel on it. You'll be fine."

"Tore through my kidney and liver. Not… not gonna... Fuck. Listen, Shepard. I got a wife back home. Lay a finger on her and" He growled sharply, trying to ignore the pain for a minute. "And if you touch her I'll come back and beat your rookie ass. 'Kay?" He died snickering there. _Shit. I'm sorry Anton._

"Shepard! Shepard what happened?!" Schwinn overheard our brief conversation.

"Anton's dead Carol. How's the hack progressing?"

"They've gotten through the first two doors but there's a third one before we can get in. You need me up there?"

"No! Whatever you do, make sure the bunker holds!" I pulled one of his dog tags to give to his wife. She deserved far more than a letter.

I worked my way up to the movie room, silently killing the few Batarians in my way. Slit their throat from ear to ear with my hand covering their mouth. _You bastards deserved far worse_. I entered the projector room. _Makarov should be here, not me._ I briefly recorded a message and waited. Didn't have to wait long. Ten Batarians barged into the darkened room, mag lights on full power and rifles raised. _Oops._ Uploading the recording to the projector and played it. A three dimensional hologram appeared near the far side of the wall.

"Hellooo you dumb, sniveling worthless, inbreed slaver trash." They fired about four seconds longer than they should have needed before realizing it was only a projection. "Now, normally I would just kill you. I mean, you killed my family, my friends, tried to burn my home to the ground. You see, I can forgive that. Kind of. It's not like you're all merciless bastards who can't think past your own greed and incompetence can you? Except now, now you've attacked another planet just minding their own business. Now for that, I'd kill you all on sight. But the team mate that one of your little piece of backyard pyjak shit brained friends killed, he had a wife. So now, now you get to stew in your own fear for a while. And I'm going to have some fun with you.

"You're standing on a nice pile of explosives." That bit made them panic and break for the door. "Oh I wouldn't do that. Anyone takes another step, and BOOM! You all get splattered onto the celling. Now here's where it gets fun." I walked out and opened the door to 'let them out'. "Soon as one of your slave trading son of a whore buddies comes in, well it's pretty much the same thing as what happens if you move. Except you take someone else with you. Tsk. Tsk." With that, the hologram cut out and the real me joined in.

"Shame you don't have better sweep and clear protocols. Can't really expect much from two-bit bastards. See you in hell." I held up a grenade, making sure they saw it and threw it into the middle of the group. "Ten seconds." I ran for the stairwell to avoid the massive blast that was about to follow. I slammed the door open desperately trying to break my pace; I leapt over the railing falling right down the middle of the stairwell.

The grenade in consort with the explosives placed under their feet blew a hole big enough to take out the wall to the outside, turning both the fourth and fifth floors into rubble and fire. Hitting the ground, my foot slipped out from under me causing me to smash my shoulder and kneecap into the concrete. Hurt like a bitch to stand up. "Schwinn, we good to go?"

"Affirmative Chief. Say the word and we'll throw the switch."

"Gimme a minute. Didn't quite go to plan. Hold the courtyard till I'm in the lobby."

I heard some faint weapons fire before she responded. "Better hurry Shepard. They're already here! West! Throw it now! I'll hold 'em off."

"I'll be there in a second!" I bolted up the stairs, adrenaline numbing the pain. _Bastards aren't taking any more of my team._

Bursting through the lobby door being greeted by a small hail of plasma I slid behind a couch pulling my pistol and started shooting blind. Using the cover fire, I pulled my M7 Lancer and opened up with armor piercing rounds jamming my pistol in between the cooling unit and the barrel to steady it. Not the best plan, but I could turn the weapon slightly and still use my pistol.

The Batarians just kept coming. For each one we shot, another three joined the fight. "LT, toss a burner!" The Batarians screamed in agony when the incendiary grenade she tossed exploded.

We kept this up for over an hour and a half, but no word from the tech team. "It's been too fucking long" I called to Schwinn. "I'm going to go look for them. You ok up here?"

"Natural kill zone Shepard. I'll keep 'em off you! Go!" I ran down, started looking for the engineering team. She was right though, the place was nothing short of an interconnected maze.

"This is Shepard, anyone in the 643rd there?" I replied with static. "This is Shepard, Captain West can you hear me?" Again, nothing. "Marshal, come in." Still nothing. I tried radioing Schwinn but got an equally bad signal. _Damn facility must be shielded._

_Ok, we do this the old fashioned way._ "Marko!" I called out. They still didn't answer me. "MARKO!"

"Sorry Shepard." The voice didn't come from the built-in comm line, and I couldn't narrow down a direction so it wasn't in person.

"Where are you?"

"Command room. PA system. Look, we got Batarians trying to blow the door."

"Shit, can you direct me to you?"

"Um… yeah. Tom, where's the Chief? Ok good. You're only thirty meters away. Take a left at the next juncture and run. They're placing some kind of explosives." _No more._ I ran full sprint, nearly throwing myself into the wall on the turn.

I could see them placing something big next to the control room door. Rather than trying to get close, I chose to pull my Indra sniper rifle. _Smile for the camera._ Pulling off a rapid triple shot, one went down with a second being clipped in the shoulder falling to the ground. "Hello boys!" I slid to the side behind the wall supports while they went for cover.

"Surrender now and I promise you a quick death Human!"

"Funny! I was just about to say the same thing!"

"You come out now or I'll—" I put a round through his throat to shut him up. The last thing I needed was to hear one of those things describe how they were going to torture and kill me. I was too pissed off as it was.

"The rest of you come out with your hands up and weapons on the floor. You shoot you die. You speak, you die. Got it?" There wasn't a single part of me that intended to let them live. The bomb they brought was big enough to blow the entire bunker up. I equipped high explosive incendiary rounds to my Indra and waited.

"Ok, we're coming out. Don't shoot." Five of them slowly stood up, hands in the air holding the universal "surrender" position.

"That all of you?"

"Yes. We surrender. Please, show us mercy" Firing a single round into the middle one's chest, the shrapnel from his armor killed the others around him and the force from the round slammed them into the walls. I walked up and put a pistol round into each of their heads for good measure.

"Slavers don't get mercy." Sighing, I looked at the bomb. _Not yet armed. Good._ "Marshal, area's clear. How's the system reboot going?"

"Few hick-ups here. They shot up half the computers here we've been scrapping a system together. Hour to finish it then twenty to boot the system."

"You have fifty minutes. Now how the hell do I get out of here?"

He snickered at my time demand and uploaded a copy of the facility to my omni-tool highlighting the way out. "And what's with the jamming?" Huffing as I ran back for the entrance.

"Communication signals are routed through the facility's own lines. Everything is down. We're lucky we have internal communications back up."

I was down for half an hour. Half an hour too long. I walked up from the hidden entrance inside the courtyard. Was stupid. I didn't check the balconies that were on the inside. Sniper nearly hit me. Stumbling back down, I pulled my Indra out once more. _Where are you?_ The bastard was dumb enough to take another shot at me despite my cover. It didn't take a genius to figure out his position from where I was. _Got you._ He wasn't behind cover or prone. Dumb bastard deserved to be shot if that's how he used a sniper rifle. Fell sixteen stories onto the ground less than four feet from me. _If this is the best the send for *me* then the Alliance should just drop me onto Khar'Shan. Take the problem out at the source_

I could hear a woman grunting, as a man interrogated her. _Oh crap. Caroline…_ She responded to the slaver's question with "Screw you four-eyes." I could hear him strike her, the thud of her head hitting the floor. _No way is this happening again._

"Tell me what you know human, or I'll let my men get it out of you. And they won't be as gentle as I've been." He gave her a twisted, psychotic chuckle as further emphasis of what would happen.

She didn't say anything back to him. "Your choice bitch." He turned to his men and told them simply "Do what you wish. Just make sure she can still speak when you're done."

"No you don't." I swore under my breath along with a few brief, creative obscenities. But of course she still refused to just give up. She tried, but there wasn't anything she could do against the four of them. _Well Bertha, looks like you're having a busy day today._ Armor piercing rounds on a sniper rifle do some serious damage to an unshielded target. Nearly cut their torsos in half.

"Ground?" She called out.

"Pounder! You okay?" It took her a minute to get back up, groaning.

"Mostly. Ow. Why did you wait so long?" Her voice was filled with anger. And she was bleeding, her body covered in scars, armor ripped off.

"What happened?"

"They tortured me you dumb fucking colony hick! For twenty minutes!" She stepped in close and grabbed my pistol.

"DUCK!" I did so and she shot once. The plasma round went right through his head. She walked up to him and started shooting him. And she didn't stop until his face was gone, caved in, just a puddle of blood on the floor. "Don't ever fuck with a Human. We tend to take it personal." She said to the body.

She turned to me and said "So, what" and just collapsed mid-sentence. The thought of revenge was the only thing that let her live. They had _actually_ cut out one of her _lungs_! Yet things only got worse from there. More than a dozen ships came down from orbit and landed just outside. _Alliance ships would never land like that._ It was further support. Apparently they didn't trust that firing from orbit would get the job done. Mafia rules and all: no body means not dead.

More Batarians started charging me whole platoons at a time. They overran the lobby in under a minute forcing me to leave Schwinn's body behind and retreat to the bunker's entrance, using the stairs as cover. They just didn't stop coming at me; hundreds of them. Probably the entire crews for a few of the ships they landed. When the bodies became too high and too thick going from the lobby to the courtyard they just moved up to the second floor. Then the third, fourth and fifth. Slowly they moved up and up. Never ceasing, never faltering, and never giving up. Until they just ran out of men I guess. For seven hours we exchanged gunfire. The grass, rocks and trees around the entrance had been burned down and turned to a glass-like substance from the plasma and heat. The only reason I survived was the extra heat sink I installed in my Lancer. The air around me felt like I was in the middle of the desert, but I survived.

"All clear." I called to the engineering team who had stayed behind me the whole time. "How the hell are we going to clear that?" openly asked regarding the pile of now rotting Batarian corpses that blocked us from the rest of the colony.

As if in response, a sniper round was fired from behind killing two of Captain West's team. "SHIT SNIPER! COVER!" Saying that was pointless. The only thing there was around us were a few collapsed benches and skinny trees that served an aesthetic purpose only. Another was shot and killed trying to find some form of cover.

At this point Captain West lost it. He started shooting wildly into the upper levels of the hotel with his pistol. "Get the hell down, now!" The sniper then killed him too. The shot that killed him was almost perfectly vertical, but the first two were at a much lower angle. _There are two of them!_

"Break for the windows!" I called to the survivors. It was a bad risk, but staying here meant certain death. I planned to cover them as best I could, then follow once they were inside. I grabbed both pistols and began firing at the ninth floor where I approximated the first sniper was but to no avail; two more of the 634th died leaving a single corporal the only one left.

I ran and rolled over the shattered window the corporal had made. "Ok, what the fuck's the plan? I mean, what the fuck can we do?!"

"Corporal—"

"They're dead. They're all dead. And—"

"CORPORAL! There are two snipers and two of us. They know we're inside, so they'll fall back to the roof. It's natural; better lines of sight for when we come to get them."

"Oh man we're gonna die too!"

I hit him at that. There was no way that we had survived this just to be killed so close to the end. With what our departure time was supposed to be, the Alliance would have sent a ship to inquire as to why my squad hadn't shown up at the rendezvous. Once they saw the Batarian fleet, assuming they weren't blown out of the sky, the Alliance would bring an entire fleet from Arcturus down on Elysium, which should be in less than an hour. "What's your name?"

"Orson, sir. Orson Prendergast."

"Ok, Orson listen closely. You'll follow me. We'll go up to the ninth floor and clear it. I think that's where one of the snipers was. Then we go to the roof. We need to get the other one anyways and we'll be able to get a shuttle out of here. Understand?"

"Ye- yes Chief." He took a deep breath calming himself. "I'm sorry about that Chief. I- I didn't mean to—"

"I understand fine Corporal. First time in a fight?" He nodded shallowly and quickly that I doubt he had ever seen blood before except from maybe a vid.

We cleared the first through nineteenth coming across nothing throughout most of the hotel and dead Batarians near the windows in the rooms. _Time to face the music._ "Ok, they're on the roof." I activated my experimental tech armor giving an extra boost to my shields with emphasis on the torso. "Let's do this."

I kicked the roof door opened and ran for an exhaust vent for cover. Orson panicked and waited before following. They took him with a two shot followed by what sounded like an off-beat heavy machine gun. I peeked from cover and saw nothing. _Where'd they go?_

Standing up I saw a blue and white Kodiak shuttle with its door open and four Marines half hanging out, rifles drawn.

"Friendly!" I called to them waving my arms like I was stranded on a deserted island. Turned out the Alliance had arrived half an hour ago, but couldn't cut through the massive numbers of ships.

Arriving on the flagship of the fifth fleet, Admiral Hackett spoke with me in private. He said that with what happened, the Alliance could use a bit of good PR, so the truth was altered and I was presented with the Medal of Valor on camera.

The "official" story was that I was part of the 634th and the only survivor. Not yet a part of the N7 program. While its existence was hardly a secret, the status of many of its members was closely guarded. So I was presented the medal by none other than Captain Anderson. A man who was regarded as a god even among other N7 agents. He went on about one thing or another for an hour while I stood on stage next to him but I wasn't listening. All I could think about was having to tell the families of my team and those I met in the 634th about what happened. I hated it. Eleven people were dead. Two were stupid accidents that should never have happened and nine were my fault. I was in command and I let them down.

I only started paying attention near the end. I had been promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander and quietly promoted to N7. They gave me an entire platoon of my own. What were they thinking? I racked up a massive body count on both sides, and they were putting me in charge of fifty men and women!

I learned shortly after the awards ceremony that my uncle Jack had passed away back on Earth from a heart attack. And I thought nothing could kill that tough old coot. As commanding officer, I decided to wait a few extra days before taking over the 79th Fleet Platoon to head back Earth for his funeral given that we already had two weeks for our actions on Elysium. It was just like he was; simple, quiet, serious, yet full of intelligence and livelihood. _He was this personable? I really did misjudge the old bastard_.


	3. Chapter 3, Prologue 3: No Man's Land

**Chapter 3:**

**Prologue-3 No Man's Land**

About a year after Elysium, a pioneering team on one of our new colonies Akuze went dark. After a week of no contact fleet-com decided to drop a platoon down and find out what happened. With the _SSV Cho Ohu_, an _Annapurna-class_ dreadnaught (she was scheduled for decommissioning in two weeks due to the Treaty of Farixen) being the closet vessel in the area, we were assigned to find the dirt-sniffers. What had me worried most is why they went radio silent for so long.

As head of the 79th platoon, I decided it would be best if we all went down. If things went as bad as they did on Elysium, then I wanted superior firepower on my side this time. It took nearly three hours for the fifty of us and our equipment to get planet side. We had around a dozen small missile, grenade launchers and a few landmines. No chances were going to be taken here.

A search of the camp turned up nothing. Nearly 100 men and women had gone missing but no clues? Something was off and everyone could feel it. With the sun falling fast I decided it would be better if we stayed for the night, start expanding the search in the morning. "All right kiddies listen up! Given how long it took us to get down here, we're gonna have a little camping excursion. So find somewhere and get comfy. Watch pattern three-two. If anyone needs me, I'll be in my helmet. Sleeping. Good night kids." Three-two was a fairly standard sentry set up for a platoon. Three members would stay awake and switch off with another team after two hours until instructed by their commanding officer.

I walked over to one of the paste-white pre-fab units and sat down with my back against the wall, deployed my helmet and activated the tint program on my visor so I could sleep a little more readily. "Hey Sheppy, got room for another?" _Damn it I do __**not**__ need this right now._

"Didn't you hear me Yamane? I'm asleep. Piss off."

"Ok well now I'm definitely staying. I can at least warn someone and save their ass from being torn into by you." I wasn't angry in general, it was her. Things between Akane Yamane and I had been rather strained in over the last few days and I just did _not_ want to deal with it right then.

"Whatever. 'Night." And with that I put on some old classical music and fell asleep. I wish to God I hadn't.

I was jarred awake a few hours later to gunfire and screaming. "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!?" No one responded to me. They were all too busy trying to keep each other alive. I grabbed the nearest marine. "TOOMBS! WHAT'S GOING ON?!"

"Giant-ass worms sir! They're trying to eat us!" _Man eating worms? What is this bull—SHIT!_ That was the first time I saw a thresher maw. They looked exactly as he described: giant worms. But with four sickle-like claws behind their gapping maws. Bastards loved to burrow and come up from under you, but they loved to spit an unbelievably corrosive acid even more. The first one I saw grabbed for Toombs. It dug one claw into his leg and one into this ass and it's… mouth if you could call it that had latched tightly on his ankle and began dragging him back into its pit causing him to drop his rifle when he hit the ground.

"Oh god no! Shepard please!" I had already lunged for him, trying to pull him free. The damned maw just kept dragging us, at the same speed no less. I pulled his pistol which was still holstered at his hip and overheated it popping plasma into it. The head, body, claws, nothing made it release its grip.

It drug us for maybe thirty feet, all while everyone else was desperately trying to avoid the same fate as what was happening to Toombs and I. "AAAHHH! God! It won't let go!" It bent his leg unnaturally as it retreated underground. I had to let go or be drug under with him. "No! Please!" His hands desperately grabbed at lumps of dirt vainly hoping for something to hold on to. "Shepaaarrrrd!" And he was gone.

I ran a check on my platoon's status. Of the fifty of us, fifteen of the beacons had gone dark. Fifteen of my marines were dead. "_Ohu_! _Ohu_, come in! This is Lieutenant Shepard, we're under attack! We need an emergency evac **NOW**! _Ohu, _do you read?!" I pulled up my assault rifle up and ran for three of my marines who were being encircled by a pair of maws.

"This is _Cho Ohu_. Shepard, what's goi—"

"_Ohu, _I need evac shuttles for my marines NOW! And get some fighters down here or we won't be getting off this rock!"

"Understood LC. We'll need a description of our target and a position."

The maws didn't even seem to notice the fire from my M7 Lancer even with the disruptor modified rounds. "Danger close! Repeat danger goddamn close! If it's bigger than a human tell 'em to blast it!" Returning my AR to the mag-locked hard-points on the back of my armor, I reached for my Scimitar shotgun 'Gretchen'. While the Scimitars themselves didn't pack much firepower, they had a high rate of fire for a shotgun and took a while to overheat. But my sweetheart was from hell. Incendiary rounds were set as the default modified ammunition and enhanced cooling, it made it easier to use in CQC. Almost nothing could stand up to her and if it did, it couldn't fight back

"Got it. Relaying—SON OF A BITCH! Shepard problem: we had an explosion in the hangar. Only one shuttle is running and the FLS (Fighter Launch System) is down. I'm sorry."

"THEN GET IT THE FUCK DOWN HERE EVEN IF YOU HAVE TO THROW IT OFF THE _OHU_! MY MEN ARE DYING DOWN HERE! Sending co-ordinates for evac site now!" And with that I cut the comm channel. Over the course of that little banter, another four had been killed. "MARINE! Shotgun, now!" One of them took their hand off of the end of their rifle to throw their shotgun to me. His rounds were flying nearly randomly, but it was only for a few seconds.

I caught his M-23 Katana. The things weren't that great in comparison to what was available to N7 operatives, but nothing was really. _Time to have some fun. _"VI, initiate Kray protocol." It was a custom built protocol that I had wrote for my VI during training in the Villa: rounds for my active weapon (or two as the case occasionally arose) I had out were switched to High Explosive rounds with incendiary thrown in to the mix for ARs and shotguns to make sure a target was dead, and power from my suit's barriers were temporarily diverted to facilitate weapon cooling when fired.

The Katana's round pissed one of the maws off and it turned to grab me. _I HOPE YOU'RE HUNGRY ASSHOLE!_ I drew both up fired them dead center of its mouth. Guts and brain matter flew in every direction. _Finally something works on these._ "VI, get me a line to everyone."

"Connection established Shepard."

"Listen up! We got a shuttle incoming, but they can only launch one. Get to the LZ. Don't stop, just run. I'll cover as best I can!" There were a few overlapping voices of volunteers offering to stay and help me. _No one else dies here._ "I said get the fuck out of here! NOW! Move it, move it, move it!" Only twenty of us were still alive. Less than ten minutes had gone by, and thirty people had been killed, eaten or dissolved by maw acid.

"All right you heard the LC! Everyone go!" _Holy hell. She's still alive._ The voice on the comms was Yamane. She always had insisted that if anyone was going to killer her, it would be a personal visit from the Grim Reaper himself; not some mook with a gun. Or a bunch of carnivorous worms apparently. "Let's go apes!"

"Milla, link the audio sensors to my HUD. I need to know where these things are." There were only a handful, maybe five or six. In two seconds, it more than tripled. Over twenty hungry, hungry maws dancing all around me. Three of them leapt out from the ground in front of me. I rolled to the side at the last minute, pulling the triggers in rapid succession nearly blowing the first one's head completely off.

The second one grabbed the Scimitar right out of my hand. I pulled my knife and drove it right into the maw causing me to basically, ride it. I leapt up and dug my blade back into it again. I worked my way up to where its head was, and popped a round into it. _MY gun. Not yours, MINE!_ I put an additional round in it from my Scimitar for good measure and to pointlessly teach it a lesson. "_That's _what you get for stealing from me."

I looked at my HUD. How many this time? Seventeen of them were heading straight for me. _Guess this is it then._ I prepared for my death. I was fine with that, since I died saving nineteen others. Worth it. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a second. "BRING IT ON YOU FUCKERS!"

But I didn't die. Less than twenty feet away from me and they turned away. _Wha—why? What's go—oh no. No. No. No. NO!_ They were heading for the LZ. And my soldiers. I put the Katana on the shotgun hard-point and ran faster than I had ever run before and since. Milla, my suit's VI program had clocked me somewhere around 30 miles an hour. My legs felt like they were about to detach and keep running all the way back the LZ without my torso. Even with how fast I was moving, the maws still outpaced me in spades. "This is Shepard, everyone scatter! Those things are heading straight for you!" All I heard back was screams.

After a few minutes of running I saw a few figures heading for me. I skidded to a stop and raised the Scimitar. _You are going to PAY FOR THIS!_ It wasn't more maws. It was two Marines; Yamane and Novak. They were beyond out of breath just as much as I was. "What happened? Where are the others?"

They both just shook their heads. "I'm sorry Commander." Novak said. "Burns, Yamane and I are the only ones who made it out."

"What do you mean they're all gone? Where's Burns?"

They looked at each other confused, then behind them. Yamane hand went over her mouth and Novak quietly swore. "I swear he was right behind us sir." Forty-seven dead. All of them… I couldn't save any of them. It was turning out exactly like Mindoir.

I re-opened the comm line to our dreadnought, "_Ohu_, where THE GOD DAMNED HELL IS THAT FUCKING SHUTTLE!?"

The reply didn't come from the _Cho Ohu_. "This is Flight Sargent Johnson sir, sorry about the delay. Breaking through the cloud layer for your position now. How many for pick up?"

* * *

What Shepard had responded with just wasn't possible. _Just three? Three out of fifty?!_ "Un—" he swallowed the lump in his throat which temporarily threw his voice off. "Understood sir. Be there in 45 seconds." Whatever Cerberus was, they weren't out to gain knowledge for Humanity's best interest. If they had, then they wouldn't have paid him to overload the systems on the shuttles. _And I have to live with this. Forty seven of my friends are dead because I wanted some extra credit. _He decided that he would go to the _Ohu_'s captain and tell him everything he knew about Cerberus, stockade time be damned. There was no possibility that he could ever clear his conscience for this, but it might rest just a bit easier if it never happens again.

* * *

The bitter-sweet knowledge that at least the three of us were getting off this hell-hole of a rock quickly turned to just bitter. The alarms on my HUD started screaming at me: another twelve maws were coming at us, and from every angle. "We got incoming! Circle up! High ex rounds are the only thing that'll kill them!" I handed my spare pistol to Novak and uploaded the Kray program to both of their suits' VI program. "If they grab you, arm your grenades and sync them to your LS monitor."

"Sir?" Yamane asked.

"These things like to drag us down alive. If any of us are 'lucky', we'll take two or three out once underground."

"Wouldn't exactly call that 'lucky' sir."`

"When did luck ever factor in this cluster fuck corporal?" _None of us are going to make it out of here._ The maws leapt up once more out of the ground, but thanks to the high explosive rounds being poured into them, we actually managed to hold them off, but they were still moving in closer and closer. By this point, everything from two meters out was a bright red ring on my sensors.

I could hear Novak cheering about something, but over the gunfire, it sounded completely unintelligible. "The hell are you so happy about Novak?"

"It's the shuttle LC! It's here! We're gonna—" his voice just stopped.

"Novak? NOVAK! Shepard, he's dead." _What?_ Somehow a maw had snuck past us and killed Novak. It must have missed 'because his head was detached from the rest of his body.

"This is Johnson, let me see if I can help you out." The crazy bastard rammed four maws, sending the Kodiak shuttle into a spin, stopping it less than four feet from us.

"Let's go Akane!" We both walked backwards, still emptying plasma into the maws. "You get in first." She instead pushed me into the shuttle. "The hell?!" I looked up to her from the shuttle floor and saw Akane cough up blood briefly. Then she disappeared. A maw had dug its claws into her and was retreating back to its lair.

"Get out of here Shepard! Akuruma Shinuyo!"*

_Oh shit._ "Pilot, get us the hell out of here!"

"What about—"

"Just go!" The Kodiak slammed me back as Johnson hit the afterburners on it. Akane's grenades took out an area nearly the size of a bioti-ball arena. They must have caused a secondary explosions using the grenades from the rest of the platoon. Either way it wasn't quite enough.

"Fuck me! We just lost the core! Power is gone! We're coming down hard!"

"What's our altitude?"

"Ten thousand, falling like rock."

"Grab a chute. We'll jump."

"Not possible, the controls are gone. The door won't open. Hold ooooooooonnnnn!" We slammed into the ground like a round fired from the _Cho Ohu_ itself. I had my armor, but Johnson was wearing just a standard shuttle flight suit. No additional armoring or micro inertial dampeners to soften sudden blows.

I climbed into the cockpit of the shuttle "Johnson. Come on, let's get moving." He didn't respond. "Johnson?" I pulled him back from the control console, but he was gone. His chest had been crushed to nearly a 90° angle when he hit the panel. His bones were likely a powder. _God damn it. Another dead soldier because of me._ "_Ohu_, this is Shepard. Shuttle is down, no survivors of the 437 or pilot. Can you get something down to me?"

"This is the _Ohu_. We've been working on getting a fighter to the hanger to launch it there. We'll leave the co-pilot seat open for you. Are you sure about the survivors?"

"Positive. I'm the only one left."

I could hear him sigh heavily over the line. "Understood. The fighter should be there in less than five minutes. Good luck LC." _Good luck? My entire platoon is dead. The evac shuttle and its pilot are dead. The survey team is more than likely all dead._ I looked to my Scimitar. It was smashed open. So were the other my other guns. _Shit. Shit, shit, shit._ Five minutes, maws likely on the way and all I had nothing. I pulled Johnson's pistol and uploaded Kray. It was a lower end Predator, but I hoped it would pack enough of a punch to work. _If the door won't open on its own, I'll have to "convince" it._ I pulled up the armor piercing rounds and aimed for the hinges and locks on the door, taking them out one by one.

_Let's see what's out there._ I kicked the door open and was pleasantly surprised. That is to say, my blood pressure and terror didn't go up any farther. I climbed on top of the shuttle and waited for the fighter to come and the maws to attack. But they didn't come. The fighter made a soft landing, and we floored it back to the _Cho Ohu_.

* * *

Shepard barged onto the CIC, covered in blood. _What the hell is he doing here? He should be on med deck._ Admiral Sandra Lee thought to herself. _If he wants to give a direct report, I guess that'll work too._ What he said next shocked her. "You want to do what?!"

"I said you need to fire a round from the main cannon to the camp site. You have to kill those things!" No way was he thinking right.

"And what of the 437th? Some of your men might still be alive. You'd just blindly throw them away like that?"

"They're all dead! Every. Last. One! I am asking you to let me kill the rest of those creatures. Please ma'am."

That couldn't happen. "Shepard, you are hereby confined to the medical bay until a full psychiatric evaluation may be run. You may use the head and dining facilities as needed. But effective immediately, you are not to participate in any on-going missions on this ship. Am I understood?"

Rather than spit a "yes ma'am" and leave as she expected, Shepard pulled his gun and pointed it to her head. "Shepard, you put that weapon down_._" This grabbed the attention of everyone in the room "And relieve yourself to the med deck. That's a direct order _Lieutenant_. If you don't I _will_ charge you with threatening a flag officer." She could see him arguing with the choice in his head.

He finally lowed the weapon and set it on the hologram projector. "This? This was Lieutenant Johnson's weapon, _Admiral_. There are no human survivors on Akuze." With that, he walked away.

"As you were!" She barked to the CIC staff and continued her message. _"Confirmed presence of thresher maws. Will be leaving system momentarily. Platoon 437 KIA, one survivor. Recommend extreme caution as survivor indicates likely more maws on Akuze. Cerberus operation No Man's Land closed_." Fifty of her men had died, but Cerberus had made far worse requests of her before. "Helm, prepare for FTL jump. Target: Acturus Station. Comms, send message from my data pad on coded frequency six-delta-echo-one-one." _Just another mission._

* * *

Between Elysium and Akuze I had earned the nickname of the "Angel of Death". I hated it so badly. Every time I heard someone whisper "is that the angel?" I had a brief flash of someone under my command who died; seeing their face glaring at me, cursing that it was my fault.

* * *

_*Akuruma shinuyo* should roughly translate as "Die you demons". Though I'm taking Japanese, I'm nowhere near fluent enough to know for sure. If you do know the proper characters, PM them to me and I'll fix it soon as I see it._

_So unfortunately, this is where John starts getting cold. I mean sixty Marines died in total under his command. Who wouldn't start becoming introverted?_


	4. Chapter 4: Prep for Jump

Chapter 4

Prep for Jump

Captain David Anderson, Admiral Steven Hackett and Representative Donnell Udina were going over a long list of military candidates to submit to the Council.

"Well what about Shepard?" Udina said. "He's a colony kid. Lost his parents to a Batarian raiding party."

"He knows how to survive. He's the reason Elysium is still standing. Drew the Batarians off from the rest of the colony. Year later he survived his unit being wiped out on Akuze." Anderson knew this better than anyone, being a veteran of the First Contact War and one of the first to come out of the N7 program.

"I've read his file. According to the reports, he was barely fit for duty. Soldiers with scars like that… they're rarely able to recover." Hackett wasn't so sure about their choice.

"Every soldier has scars. And Shepard is one of the best there is. Never seen someone get back in the field after that."

"We can't question his courage, but is this really the kind of person we want as the first operative?" How could Udina begin to question him? He was the one who brought Shepard up in the first place.

"He'll get the job done. I'd stake my life on it."

"Very well, I'll make the call."

Though they all knew it might not be up to them anyways. All they could do was put forth a list of possible names.

* * *

_"You're the reason we're all dead."_

_"No. No I tried. I swear, I thought it would work."_

_"You USED us. Just to save your own ass. You're a coward."_

_"Burns… Burns, I'm sorry."_

_"No you're not! You're nothing but a coward Shepard. You always have been. You know what the last thing I saw was?" I shook my head, not knowing if I could hear the answer. "It was the others. Dying. Some of them were in pieces, but most of them were alive. Their stomachs glow so I saw them. Saw them dissolve right in front of me."_

_I fell down, feeling dirt in my hands. "You know where we are Shepard?"_

_"Please, don't do this Ben. Please. I didn't mean—"_

_"Too late Shepard. You get to live through the hell we all died in. Welcome back to Akuze Shepard." He disappeared into mist._

_Then the shrieks came again. Bursting out of the ground, a massive thresher maw lunged for me. I tried running but my body wouldn't respond. It stood there and bellowed at me as if it was unsure as to why I wasn't running._

_After a few seconds it decided that I was still food and swallowed me whole. I slid down its gullet, straight into the deepest bowels of its stomach. It was just like he said. An eerie blue glow lit my way down. To say it was beyond disgusting was the most mildly. The most neglected waste refuse in an active volcano would have been a pleasant change to this._

_I slid, down feeling the overwhelming pressure as it swallowed me. After what felt like an eternity it finally, mercifully opened up. Falling into the digestion chamber, I joined Akane who was in there, burned terribly. Or rather, half digested._

_"No. Please, not you too." I pleaded to her._

_"Why? You think I don't have a reason to be angry?"_

_I stammered before admitting I had no idea._

_"Exactly. I'm dead because of you!" With that, she started to strangle me._

_"Pl—please. I-I didn't—" Gasping for breath "I never— Please. I'm sorry."_

_She pulled my knife out of its sheath, raising it over her head. "No. No please. Please Akane…"_

_She plunged between my shoulder blade and neck, then went started stabbing my like an inmate. Deep, rapid strikes to my lower abdomen._

_"No… no." I was being digested in a worm, coughing up blood because one of my own soldiers started shanking me. What a wonderful way to die this time._

The vivid nightmare shook me awake. "NO!" I slammed my head against the inside of my sleeper pod.

"Ow. Fuck." I rubbed my head then my eyes. Always someone different; for the last six years, every night I would be killed by someone who died under my command.

Shaking it off, I opened to pod up and began my morning routine: one hundred negative incline pushups, alternating one arm in the cargo bay followed by another hundred crunches. I grabbed my armor from the locker and went back to deck two, entering the shower on the starboard side of the ship. Quick rinses were the only thing that was allowed given the lack of space on most frigates. The _Normandy_, even more so.

I slapped my armor on, only a pistol and knife equipped; an M-6 Carnifex and the same serrated Ka-bar my uncle gave me almost ten years ago. I fiddled with it for a few seconds before putting it in its sheath under my left armpit. Skipping breakfast, I went up to deck one. We were about to jump to the Exodus cluster and I wanted to see how this new ship performed.

"This is Flight Lieutenant Moreau; we are approaching the Sol relay. ETA to jump, thirty seconds." I walked past Private Jenkins on the bridge who gave me a polite nod

It was the strangest thing, every assignment I had had after Akuze people had referred to me as "the Angel". Specifically, the angel of death. And they hadn't been wrong to do so either. But not the _Normandy_ crew. They had all been polite, understanding. Though the fact that Captain Anderson had made me the XO probably had something to do with that.

Staff Lieutenant Kaidan Alenko was sitting next to Joker in the pilot's chair. "Relay contact in five. Four. Three." I decided it would be best if I sat down on the portside cockpit chair in case of any deceleration turbulence. It was as a real bitch on frigates when it occurred. "Two. One."

Surprisingly, it was the smoothest transit I had ever had. "Thrusters, check. Navigation, check. Internal emissions are engaged." Moreau was audibly running through the checklist. "Drift… just under 1500k."

"Fifteen hundred is good. Your captain will be pleased." _I hate it when he does that._ The mildly snide remark was from our Turian Spectre "guest" Nihlus. He then turned around and left the cockpit. Never even heard him approach. He was officially an observer, but there was something about him that made me doubt that's all that he was here for. A high-end special operations soldier on a high-tech prototype vessel? You send an engineer for that.

"Pfft. I hate that guy." Moreau grumbled.

"Nihlus gave you a complement. So you hate him?"

"You remember to zip up your jumpsuit on the way out of the bathroom that's good. I just jumped us half way across the galaxy and hit a target the size of a pinhead; that's _incredible_."

"The man does have a point." I quipped back, though felt a little bad that I hadn't gotten the names of the crew memorized, our pilot being one of them.

The pilot further added to his defense "Besides, Spectres are trouble. Call me paranoid."

"You're paranoid. The Council helped to fund this project; they have a right to send someone to keep an eye on their investment."

"Then why send a Spectre?" I responded to the both of them. "Something like this, you send a pencil pusher or an engineer. A soldier? Not likely."

"Exactly." Moreau was beaming as if he had just won his first argument all year.

"Joker, status report!" Even over a comm line, Anderson's booming voice could make a soldier jump to attention. One of the first to come out of the N7 program and veteran of the First Contact war; even those who knew he wasn't an invincible god regarded him as an unkillable one.

"We just cleared the relay sir. All systems read normal."

"Good. Link us up to a comm buoy. I want to contact Alliance command before we reach Eden Prime."

"Aye sir. Better brace yourself sir. I think Nihlus is heading your way."

"He's already hear Lieutenant." The 'oh fuck' grimace was all over his face; eyes squeezed shut and all. "Tell the commander to meet me in the debriefing room."

"You get that sir?"

"Nice going. You pissed him off and now I get to pay for it." _Damn, that came out more abrasive than I meant._ I stood up to leave, but could still hear Kaidan and Joker continued all the same.

"Captain always seems pissed off to me."

"Only when he's talking to you Joker."

_Wonder what it is he needs to talk to me about._ And those two weren't the only ones. Navigator Pressly was arguing with Adams, head of engineering about Nihlus. As were Private Jenkins and Doctor Chakwas outside the comm room.

"Hey Commander, you don't think we'll be on Eden Prime long do you? I'm hoping for some real action." Everything about Jenkins was greener than the rolling hills of Scotland.

"I sincerely hope you're kidding Corporal. Your "real action" usually ends with me patching you up in the infirmary."

"The Doc's right Walt. Only dead men start fights."

"Yeah I guess you're right. It's just I'm on edge with Nihlus here."

"So, what can either of you tell me about our Turian guest?"

They both gave me an unknowing shrug. "Can't really tell you much." Chakwas said. "He's barely spoken more than two words to me since he came aboard."

"I heard he took down an entire enemy platoon all by himself. Not much beyond that. Hey, you'd make a great Spectre Shepard. I mean, after Akuze, aren't you pretty much invincible?"

"Fifty of my friends died on that rock _Richard_. Don't forget that."

"I'm sorry sir. I didn't mean—"

"No it's alright. It's just that… I don't like remembering Akuze." _Last night's dream certainly didn't play any part of that._ "I should be going. Captain said he wanted to speak with me."

I left the two of them to discuss the difference between the reality and romantic tales that Spectres were and entered the briefing room at the back of Deck One; but Anderson wasn't there. Nihlus was and he was looking at a picture of Eden Prime off the extranet.

"Ah, Shepard. Good I'd hoped to speak with you in private." Something felt… off with how he said that.

"Captain Anderson said he'd be meeting me here, so you'll have to make it quick."

"I guess so. This world we're going to: Eden Prime. I've heard it is quite beautiful." He still hadn't taken his eyes off of the holographic projection.

"If you want to know about it ask Jenkins. Local could tell you about it better than I could."

"But you know of it. I hear it's become something of a symbol for your people; proof that Humanity is ready to join the galactic community. But how safe is it really?" The arrogant prick was looking to start another war with us, and Eden Prime was going to be first.

"If you've got something to say," I raised my left arm up, resting my hand on my knife handle. "I suggest you say it. _Turian._"

"Easy Commander. No need to get worked up over nothing."

"Oh really? So a member of the only race Humanity has gone to war with aside from itself, starts making veiled threats, and you tell me to calm down? I don't think so."

"Ok, I can see dancing around this will only anger you."

"You catch on quick. That why you were made a Spectre? Cause of your people skills?"

"I'm here to make you an offer Shepard. You shouldn't turn it down."

"I have a better idea; how about you take that offer, and cram it up whatever—"

"SHEPARD!" I snapped to attention at Anderson's voice throwing a salute. "What the hell is going on here Shepard?"

"Sir, I—"

"Simple misunderstanding Anderson. My fault. Nothing to worry about."

"Then perhaps we should tell the Commander what this is about."

"Agreed. I'm here to evaluate your skills Shepard."

All I could do was scoff at him. "The hell you will. The Alliance doesn't answer to Spectres."

"The Alliance doesn't. But you might soon." I gave Anderson a quizzical look.

"Why would that be sir?"

"Because I put your name forward to be a Spectre."

"No offense, but why would a Turian put a Human's name in for the Spectres?"

"Not all of us resent Humanity. Some of us see what you have to offer. You're a singular soldier Shepard. First saving the colony of Elysium, then surviving Akuze. I was impressed. So were many others but they're not so accepting of change."

A Turian put my name in for the Spectres. This was big. Big for the Alliance and Humanity. All I had to do is not completely fuck it up. "Ok, so let's get this started. What do you need from me?"

"I'll be accompanying you over the next several months. Following you on all active missions you go on and evaluation your performance. If I like what I see you'll be formally initiated."

"That's only one reasons he's here Shepard. This flight is more than just a shakedown run."

"I figured as much sir. Could I ask for the reason for not telling me?"

"Orders came down from the highest ranks of the Alliance. Even above Hackett." _Someone higher up on the chain than Hackett? Whatever this is, it's huge._ "We're heading for Eden Prime to pick up a Prothean beacon. We're picking it up and delivering it to the Citadel."

"Why don't we just take it back to Earth? Send the data to the Council once we've decrypted it?"

"Because you're people are still new-comers Shepard. And forgive the bluntness, but not everyone trusts—"

"Captain! Transmission from Eden Prime sir. You better see this." Joker was just about bellowing over the comms as if he was trying to shout the distance.

We were all back to business. "Put it through down here."

The feed looked like it was coming through a helmet camera on one of Eden Prime's local soldiers. No, not a helmet cam. There wasn't any gunfire coming from the person we were seeing through. It was being transmitted from a reporter or maybe local with a vid-cam. The video was shaky, jumping in and out of focus left and right. We couldn't get a good look at who was fighting, but it was clear that the Alliance squad on camera wasn't faring well. _Almost looks like Elysium._

A soldier the white and red Phoenix armor ran for the camera operator "Get down!" She yelled at him, pushing him to the ground showing another soldier, this one wearing Liberator armor being hit the head from an assault rifle burst. A couple of them stopped shooting at their attackers and looked terrified of something. Panning left to see what it was, the camera showed some kind of ship descending through the clouds briefly. Less than a second later it cut to static.

"That's it Captain. No transmissions from Eden Prime since then. All the signals just go dead."

"Reverse and hold at 38.5"

The video ran backwards briefly; he saw it too. The holo froze on the descending ship. Or rather, part of it. Whatever it was, it was massive. But the creepiest part was that it looked like a hand coming down. A massive metal hand. I looked at Nihlus; his eyes were wide and twitched his mandible. I didn't need to know Turians well to know he was just as disturbed as I was at what we were seeing.

"Any other ships in the area Joker?" Anderson asked. I knew what he was thinking. If something that big could land on a planet, then it was probably an absolute killer in space. And orbital bombardment just became an acceptable option.

"No sir. But we're only seventeen minutes out. I've already pushed the engines up to their limit plus a little extra."

"Engage the stealth drive. Anderson out. Shepard, tell Alenko and Jenkins to suite up and meet us down in the cargo bay." He and Nihlus headed for the door. "Looks like this mission just got a lot more complicated."

The picture of that… hand… was still on the holo-screen. Something just felt off about it. I couldn't put my finger on it, but something was… wrong. Just wrong on every level down to my bones.

I activated the squad-link on my omni-tool. "Alenko, Jenkins. Cargo bay. Now. Code black."

* * *

The wait to get to Eden Prime was horrible. The distress call we saw already had a time lag on it of over an hour, which put Jenkins on the celling. Poor kid. I really felt for him.

"You're team's the muscle in this operation Shepard." Anderson bellowed over the open cargo bay door as Joker fine handled the controls for our combat drop.

"Approaching drop point one."

"Nihlus, you're not coming with us?" I turned my head to see him taking a quick look at his shotgun before slapping it to his back.

"I move faster on my own." And with that, he ran out of the cargo bay and jumped onto the ground.

"Nihlus will scout out ahead and feed you information along the way." Anderson explained to us.

"Approaching drop point two."

"The mission is yours now Shepard. Get down there and secure the beacon."

"What about survivors sir? There's bound to be some in the area." I asked him. Why the hell would he order us to just leave innocent people to die?

"Helping survivors is a secondary objective."

"With all due respect that's bullshit sir!"

"Just get it done!"

"Ready and able sir!" I deployed my helmet and hollered back to Kaidan and Richard, "Squad One, JUMP!" And with that, we bolted full speed for the open cargo bay door.


	5. Chapter 5: Eden Prime

**ABLE/NOVEMBER:** Sorry for the delay, but I've had a cross between tech issues, classes and lack of inspiration. Also sorry for the "Able November" thing. I'm a long list of military members, so it's kinda habit.

Thanks to ConradVernerN7 for keeping me company through this and giving me some ideas later on down the road. He's worth a read. So is TheSneakyFox.

Finally, since I'm a huge fan of classic cult movies, I had to throw some in. The first one is in this chapter. Kudos to whomever finds the reference first. Don't spoil it for the others though! Have fun reading!

**-Daedalus30185**

* * *

Chapter 5:

Eden Prime

Combat rolls with full weapons loadouts sucked. Even with training it threw you off. We came out of it rifles drawn on the edge of a cliff overlooking one of the cities.

"By the numbers!" I called. First priority for combat drops like this was to check for injuries.

"Bio-tech specialist clear. No injuries." Kaidan replied.

"Oh my god. Oh my god… what… what happened here?"

"Jenkins, you here?"

"That's… that's Wardesh burning. Oh my god. That's my hometown. My family is down there."

"JENKINS!" I grabbed him by the shoulders and pulled him in close to me. "I know you're not in the best place right now, but I need you here. Are you with me Marine?"

"Um. Yes. Yes sir." He stammered out. "Ready and able."

"You'll be fine kid. We'll make it out of here. Understood?"

"Hoo-rah sir." He said, some of the conviction returning to his voice.

"You know the area better so you're on point Private." There were two reasons I put him on lead. The first was he _did_ know the colony better than I did; the other was that it would help take his mind off of the fact that his home was burning just as mine did.

"Commander, it's Nihlus." Hearing his voice over our comm line so suddenly I nearly jumped. "I've got some burnt out buildings here. A _lot_ of bodies. There's a spaceport a few hundred meters ahead. I'll meet you there. Nihlus out."

We continued through a small rock passage, stopping just before an opening; another cliff face with the view being that of Wardesh.

"Damn." Kaidan coughed out. "The place smells like death and ash."

"EVA masks on; all filters." Should have thought of it sooner and Kaidan should have had much more tact about it, but what we were smelling would stay with Jenkins for the rest of his life. That feeling in your gut that every piece of charred, burnt flesh might be that of someone you knew: an old neighbor, a friend, a family member. I made a mental note to wring Kaidan's ass out for that later.

Jenkins motioned for us to stop. We crouched down and looked around for any targets; nothing. "Jenkins." I inched up to him. "You see something?"

"There's something on the motion sensor. Can't quite tell what it is though."

I looked at the motion sensor in my helmet, but it only showed the three of us. "I don't see anything."

"Well whatever it is, it's showing up on mine and it's at the maximum range."

"I think I'm picking it up too. Looks like a simple sensor echo; probably just a tree in the wind"

"I'm going to see if I can get a better angle from the other side." Jenkins said. Keeping his rifle trained to the echoing area on his HUD he moved into the open heading for a large boulder near the edge to use as cover for the rest of us to advance.

He made it half way before a pair of remote drones attacked. They were the weirdest looking ones I had ever seen. They emitted a loud whirring noise, but didn't show up on my HUD. They charged at Jenkins from the tree line and started shooting him. The rounds tore right into him.

"Kaidan, cover me!" I yelled as I pulled Pollux and Castor, my twin M-6 Carnifex pistols firing at the two drones. The left drone was hit right in the center of its optic sensor and the one on the right was hit between the main body and its gun severing it in half. Both exploded in a wild and terrific display of fireworks, but I kept my weapons trained on the two scrap heaps. "Check on Jenkins. I've got these things."

I kicked one, both weapons pointed to it, then the other to make sure they were dead. _Not good enough. Make damn sure they're dead John._ Holstering Pollux, I pulled the trigger on Castor until the two drones were little more than metallic confetti.

I walked back quickly to Kaidan who was kneeling over Jenkins, his hand near the kid's face. "How is he?" Though I was sure I already knew the answer.

"Ripped right through his shields. He never stood a chance." He was closing Jenkins' eyes.

Through the helmet, I could see his face was pale. "First time?"

"Yeah." He stood up, taking a deep breath. "Poor kid; barely twenty."

I knelt down next to Jenkins' body and reached under his chest plate feeling for his tags. Delicately, I removed the second tag from his chain and added it to my own. "We'll make sure he gets a proper burial, but I need you here and now. You good Alenko?"

"Aye sir. I'll be fine."

"All right then, let's move it." I re-holstered Pollux and pulled my M-8 Avenger again. _Seventy-seven. That was seventy-seven too many. NO MORE!_

* * *

She had been running for what felt like hours. Hours since these things had attacked and slaughtered her unit. Every muscle in her body ached, worse than hell week during basic. _God, its Ashley. If you can hear me, I'm begging you. I'm begging you for a miracle. Send me an angel or an army. Whatever you can spare._

The worst thing that could happen to then did: she tripped. Spinning onto her back of all things! The sudden shots into the dirt alerted her to the fact that she was still being chased. The two recon drones had probably been following her the whole time but her adrenaline had tuned them out.

She pulled her Predator pistol and squeezed off a half dozen shots as rapidly as she could. The pair exploded, scattering their mechanical guts all over the ground near her feet. Her head fell back on the ground in exhaustion. The fact that she had been up since nearly dawn the day before had finally hit her. More physically so than mentally. She was dead tired. _You know, if I'm gonna die, I'd like to be comfy. And here's a good spot as any._

Something perked her ears up. The mechanical whirring and clicks from the mechanical bastards that started this all. She looked "up", pistol drawn, then sat up; gun staying even the center of her visual field. She could see a pair of them holding one of the colonists against a purple-grey tripod. _The hell are they doing with the body?_

"No. No, please. Don't!" _Oh god! He's still alive!_ One of them leaned down, pressing a button on the tripod. A spike shot straight up spearing the colonist in the chest sending him up with the spike hanging nearly ten meters in the air. His feet and arms twitched for a few seconds before going limp.

She tried, but failed to keep silent "What the fuck?!" she swore, alerting the two who had just butchered an innocent farmer. Re-summoning the little strength she had left she ran back to a nearby rock formation for cover, pulling her M-8 Avenger assault rifle. _No way are they getting away with this sadistic shit. To fuck with dying._ Something tripped her peripheral vision; she turned her head and brought her weapon to bear on her new attackers.

* * *

We advanced by leap frogging behind boulders for cover; increased the sensitivity of our motion sensors to maximum. It made us jump every time a tree rustled, but I wasn't about to let us die the same way.

Kaidan was about to round a tree when I pulled him back. Four blips had appeared on my HUD as he was about to round. I signaled what I saw, adding for him to toss a ten-banger. They were flash-bang grenades that would temporarily stun not only organic targets, but drones and other low-grade synthetic targets by overloading optic and auditory inputs.

Kaidan tossed it around the tree like he was skipping a rock off a lake. He detonated it and we spun out from behind the tree, rifles aimed high and blew the four combat drones apart. Two of them were significantly larger and painted red. Probably an assault drone.

"Well, that was my last grenade." Kaidan said to me. What we were doing was probably overkill, but taking any risk wasn't an option at this point. Each time we registered a blip on our HUD we tossed a ten-banger and covered the area with plasma rounds from our rifles. We had used up the six of our combined grenades.

A scream came from a ways ahead catching our attention "No! No, please! Don't!" The voice then went silent.

"Come on!" We bolted as fast as we could in the direction we heard the scream. If there was one person, there might be others. We ran into a clearing, still about two hundred meters from the waypoint marked for the beacon. A surviving Marine in phoenix armor drew her rifle on us as we came out of the brush. She must have only caught us out of her peripherals because she immediately lowered her weapon when I raised my arm up over my head telling her that we weren't hostile.

* * *

_Oh thank you. _What Ashley had caught out of her eye wasn't more synthetic soldiers, but an Alliance team. One of them an N7 agent given the red stripe on his helmet and right shoulder. _It's not the army I was hoping for, but it's a damned sight better than dying alone_.

She was already lowering her rifle as one of their hands went up to signal that they weren't going to attack her.

"VRRRNNN-TK!" She had momentarily forgotten about the synthetics that she had alerted. She spun around as the first one was coming around the rock. She reacted instinctively, delivering kick to its leg throwing off its balance as her rifle blew it apart firing from the hip.

Back stepping out from behind her rock, she kept her finger tightly squeezed on the trigger, tearing through the second one's torso.

She moved back behind the rock and let her rifle hang low for a minute, closing her eyes and lightly hitting her head against the boulder. Holy fuck was she tired. _Seventy-three hours and no rest? Yeaaah great condition to go to war in Ash._

"You hit Marine?" Her eyes snapped back open to see the N7 in front of her, his helmet collapsing back into the back of his torso armor.

"Yes sir!" She said, redacting her own helmet. "Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams. Eden Prime's 212. You the one in charge here sir?"

"Commander Shepard, SSV Normandy. What's been going on here Gunny?" She couldn't believe her ears. _Shepard? Don't tell me it's the 'Angel' Shepard. Damn it!_ Just when she thought she might live through this.

"One big order of TARFU sir. We were sent out here to secure the beacon two days ago. All was quiet and normal then these things," she said turning to momentarily glare at the synthetic she had killed just a moment before, "whatever they are, attacked us out of nowhere."

"I think they're Geth." The other man said investigating one of them. "Kaidan Alenko. Pleased to meet you." His attention was focused on the Geth 'corpse'.

"Geth? But they haven't been outside the veil for nearly three centuries. The hell are they doing here?" Shepard said.

"Probably here for the beacon. I've been here for seven months, and the beacon is the only real thing of value here that would warrant an attack."

"Where's the rest of your unit? If they're here for the beacon we'll need the extra firepower."

"I don't think… I think I'm the only one left."

"What do you mean "you think"? What you don't know?"

Her attitude towards him immediately shifted towards what had almost become a standard for her in regards to her COs. "We held our position as long as we could! The Geth simply overwhelmed us!"

"So you just left them behind to die. Good work, what was it? Williams? You know what, forget it." He re-deployed his helmet and began to move past her towards Kaidan. "Let's move LT. we still need to get the beacon."

She couldn't believe it. _This arrogant asshole is just gonna leave me here._ "Sir, let me come with you." She grabbed the top of his shoulder piece to keep him from continuing further. "Let me come with you; get back at them for my unit."

"We'll still need the help Commander. And she knows the area a lot better than we do."

"_Fine._" His tone was filled with loathing at the fact that he needed her help; which suited her just fine. "Just remember who's in charge here."

"Not a problem sir. You point, I shoot." He simply turned back around and continued on his way.

"Is that really—"

"_The _Commander John Shepard, also known as 'the Angel of Death'? Yup."

"He's an asshole." She grunted.

"Between Mindior and Akuze, he's prone to anger around leaving people to die." The Lieutenant defended.

"HEY!" Shepard shouted back at the pair, "You can talk around the fucking cooler later! We have a job to get done! Move your ASSES!"

"Word of advice," Kaidan said as he started walking swiftly with a nervous lift in his step. "Only the stupid and the dead stay on his bad side." He then stepped his pace up to double time.

* * *

The last thing I wanted was a Marine who would ditch us if things got too hot for their taste. It was worse than not having someone there in the first place since it meant I had to be doubly aware of where my team was. _I swear to whatever asshole god there might be if she gets me killed I will haunt her ass!_

My HUD lit up with red warning lights all along the perimeter of my motion sensor. At least eight, no, ten Geth troopers were moving in from our front. Activating the helmet comms I called to Kaidan and Williams so as not to audibly alert our new 'guests'. "We've got incoming on the nose. Grab a rock and a gun. Williams, I want you in front of me. Kaidan, keep an eye on your sensors. I don't want them sneaking up on us from behind." Though Kaidan would probably have to use his pistol, it would be much easier for him to keep an eye on his motion sensor.

She gave a grunted huff which suited me just fine. I sure as hell didn't trust her to watch his back. Kaidan was a bit of a wild card when it came to actual combat, but he hadn't made any royal fuck-ups. I knelt down beside a fairly large boulder, my rifle pointed towards a narrowed opening of rocks. Ashley came up on my left, kneeling next to me her rifle aimed at the same spot.

"Where do you want me to take up suicide watch, _sir_?" She was really pissing me off.

"Cut the attitude and move up six meters and to the right, over there." I pointed to another large boulder that would give her a good field of vision on the approaching Geth. "I want them in a good cross fire." She moved back behind me and actually did as I ordered. _So she knows how to *follow* orders. Guess we're about to see how good she is at actually following through with them._ "Keep down and hold fire until someone _else _starts shooting."

I let five of the Geth soldiers moved into our kill box before I gave the order open up on them. All of them dropped quickly, but the other three quickly fell back for better cover.

"Sir!" Kaidan called out, "We have another four coming up on our tail!" The little amount of support Kaidan was providing tactically had already vanished so he could deal with the new combatants.

"Deal with them. Williams and I have our twelve." I would have preferred it if I helped him out, but I still just couldn't trust the Gunnery Chief.

"FUCK!" Kaidan yelled. "They've got rockets. I'll need some help." There was no way in hell I was going to let Williams be the one to help him. I wasn't about to let someone who already screwed over her own team to save her ass protect one of my men.

"I'm moving to support. Chief, keep the others off of us." Her hesitation before responding did not inspire confidence.

"Sorry about the delay, only one left. Got you covered." I was briefly impressed with her marksmanship abilities.

I pulled Castor, the M-6 on my left, wielding my M-8 with only one hand, bracing the butt against my arm to provide some stability. Between my hardened armor and Kaidan's biotic abilities, the Geth rocket troops were quickly put down. "Chief, you get that last one?"

"It'll be kinda hard for him to do anything with my bullets in his CPU. And every other control chip for that matter."

_Efficient and assertive. Maybe I shouldn't be *quite* so hard on her. I still don't trust her though._ "The beacon is only another fifteen meters up. Move out."

The last, small leg of the trip was uneventful. When we arrived at the site of the beacon, Williams went around the corner first. "Problem." She said, causing Kaidan and I to nearly jump out from behind.

"Looks like someone moved the beacon. It was sitting right here." She said indicating the center of an artificial floor.

"But who moved it? Our side or the Geth?" Kaidan asked, closely investigating one of the spikes. "And what's the point of these? It'd be easier just to kill us."

"Doubt it was us," I said looking around. Most of the bodies were Alliance soldiers lying alongside only a handful of Geth. "Doesn't look like any of our people survived the last wave."

"Is it possible that it was moved before the Geth attacked?"

"It's _possible_. There's a small research camp just up the hill. The two thirty-two was assigned to guard the scientists there. If anyone survived they'll be up there."

"Alright Chief, lead the way."

* * *

The camp was trashed. Small fires everywhere, a couple of the prefabs were demolished into little more than scrap, her friends lie dead across the area; about a half dozen were skewered on the Geth spikes. But the odd thing was, there weren't any Geth themselves.

"Just as I thought. No one made it." Shepard was really getting on her nerves. But his tone had a hint of… remorse. Like it was partially his fault.

The spikes the Geth had butchered some of the Marines on began to screech. They were retracting themselves. When it fully collapsed, the soldier who was on it began get up. "Oh my god. They're still alive!" The other five devices began to follow suite, an electric blue energy pulse emitted from him once he was upright. "What did the Geth do to them?"

It began to look around, as if it was re-acquainting itself with the surroundings. Its eyes finally settled on Ashley and began to move forward awkwardly. As he approached, she was able to make out part of a name on his chest; whatever these "modifications" were, they weren't a hundred percent thorough.

"Tobias?" She asked unsure. "Oh my god. Tobias, is that you?" He outstretched his arms, reaching for her. His pace increased, growing more unstable.

Tobias' mutilated body slammed into her, pushing both of them to the ground; his hands reached for her throat and began to strangle her. "Get—off." She choked out. Shepard grabbed him by the shoulders and tossed him away, grabbing his shotgun and bringing it to bear on the crazed human. "No wait!"

Her plea fell on deaf ears. The 'Angel' blew the arm left arm clean off, rounds piercing across the entire torso. "Gun 'em down!" He ordered. Ashley turned to see Alenko drawing his pistol, turning it on the other impaled victims who were now approaching the trio. Everything just seemed to slow down like in the old films back home.

"On your feet Williams." The prick didn't even sound like he regretted what happened.

"Why did you do that?! He was still alive!"

"The hell it was. He was impaled through the chest, then tries to strangle someone. All that's left of him is a husk. Same goes for the others." She was about to retort when he cut her off "And if that happened to me, I'd damn sure want someone to—the hell was that?" A metallic banging had interrupted him, making all three nearly jump.

"I've got two thermal blips from the prefab on the right."

"Shotguns ready." Shepard ordered. _Great, so we're going to go kill more of our own people. This guy really *doesn't* care._ "I'll go first, follow after me, and if its body is glowing, kill it."

Shepard went to open the door but found it locked instead. After an additional two tries he assigned Kaidan to lock duty.

"Looks like this was put on last second. Probably during the firefight so it should—" The door open interrupting what he was about to say. "Never mind. Though I'd like to point out that that wasn't me."

"No, it was me," Said a woman, stepping into view of the soldiers. "My name is Doctor Warren. Sorry for startling you. My colleague, Doctor Manuel, he's…sick." Ashley became instantly worried about what Shepard might do to him, after all, he did just kill six of their own Marines with no remorse.

* * *

I didn't like the sound of that. If what happened to him was similar to what happened to the 232nd, then he was a danger to her, and potentially us. "Let me take a look at him." I wasn't going to wait for her to give me permission. I politely pushed her aside, turning to the doctor crouched in the corner hitting his head against the wall of the pre-fab shelter.

"He is here. The herald of the end of humanity; our savior."

I knelt down, leaning in close. "Manuel? Doctor, can you hear me? Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"The prophet has arrived. He will bring us all with him. Our ascension is at hand."

I stood back up, ready to leave. "Lights are on, but nobody's home. What's wrong with him?"

"Genius and lunacy are two sided of the same coin."

"I am not mad. I am the only sane one here! I have seen our future. Everyone will die, and through our death we will live. We will live forever."

"Easy there Dr. Strangelove. I'm not looking to love the bomb just yet."

"Please, his condition is unstable enough as it is. The medications should kick in after a minute or two. I'm sorry; I didn't get your names."

"Shepard. This is Lieutenant Alekno and Gunnery Chief Williams. So what the hell happened here Doctor Warren?"

"Oh Maker it was horrible. We dug the beacon up two days ago; biggest find in almost a hundred years. We moved it to the tram station early yesterday. Last night, those… machines… attacked us. We could hear the Marine detail trying to hold them off. They told us to get inside, to seal the door behind us. Not long after that… they went quiet. I should have tried to help them. I should—"

"Last I checked most civilian scientists are uncomfortable being in the same room as a gun, much less assisting in a live-action firefight. You made the right call."

"I guess you're right."

"You said you moved the beacon to the tram station before the attack?" She nodded "How far and which direction?"

"Less than half a kilometer. Head back behind the other pre-fab unit. The path will lead you right to it."

"Will you be alright here?"

"I think so. We haven't heard anything for several hours. We'll be fine." Doctor Warren looked back down to her colleague who was no passed out and drooling on the floor. "With Manuel out, we shouldn't be in any danger. Go get the beacon. I'd hate to think of what those things might do with the knowledge stored in it in the wrong hands."

* * *

Nihlus could barely believe this. He had been in bad situations, firefights gone badly, but this… this was different. The fighting he had done against the few Geth squads he ran across was almost as tough as the Asari Justicar he encountered a few years earlier.

As a former soldier in the Turian Military he learned though old books about the brutality that the Geth inflicted on the Quarians when they rebelled, exiling their creators. But hitting a world like Eden Prime didn't make sense even with the Prothean beacon. An army this size, you hit an inner world of one of the major races.

Despite having traveled only half a kilometer from the drop zone he had come across nearly a hundred and fifty of the colonists on Eden Prime. _May the spirits watch after them._ But he had to focus; he needed to secure the spaceport and the beacon. He found evidence that it had been moved there, but not much else. _I had best contact the Commander and—SHIT!_ He was so distracted by what was going on that he barely noticed someone moving at the top of the ramp.

Taking cover at the base of the ramp, Nihlus drew his shotgun. He spun back up, ready to take down the Geth, but an unusual, though welcome figure stood in front of him. "Saren?" The imposing figure of his mentor stood above him, literally looking down on Nihlus. Not too different from how they first met.

"This isn't your mission Saren. What are you doing here?" Something was strange about him, but Nihlus dismissed it. It wouldn't have been the first time that he was off-put by Saren simply standing there.

"The Council thought you could use some help on this one." He replied, putting a hand on his friend's shoulder as he walked past him.

"I wasn't expecting to find the Geth here," Nihlus' attention turning back to another of the pikes. "The situation's bad."

"It's worse than you know. But don't worry. I have everything under control." Nihlus never even saw it coming.

Saren attacked him, bringing his arms up underneath Nihlus' arms, connecting at the base of his skull. Saren then tensed his muscles, straightening his arms. The move was intended to incapacitate if not kill the intended victim. Assuming the neck vertebrae weren't snapped, the arms would be simultaneously dislocated. "It's a shame I have to do this to you. You were a good friend. But the mission I'm on supersedes friendship." Un-holster his pistol, a Blood Pack Punisher; a weapon that was considered savage by most sentient species in Council space. Saren shot his friend once in the back of the head for good measure. He then proceeded to the tram way and his real objective: the Prothean beacon.

* * *

I looked back to Williams and Kaidan. "Tell me you heard that." They both nodded.

"Single round from a personal firearm. I'd say pistol or maybe," Williams emphasized the 'maybe' indicating of her less than certainness in her presumption "a sniper rifle. The spaceport is over watched by the top of the ridge. I'd recommend a sniper's surveillance before we go in."

"I'll take up over watch when we get there, take out any Geth before we move in. But plans don't mean anything unless we get to there. Move out." We walked up to the top of the hill where we beheld a sight that none of us had ever seen before: a massive ship.

"What is that? Off in the distance?" Kaidan was as dumbfounded as I was as how something that large could exist on a planet.

"It looks like a ship." The tone in Ashley's voice was just as doubtful about what she was seeing.

"It's taking off!" The bottom of the vessel was the same as what I had seen in the distress call, a massive hand. And it took a large chunk of the colony with it when it blasted off. I could barely believe it. It must have been over two kilometers long. "What the hell _is_ that thing?"

We were so transfixed with the leaving ship that we barely noticed the movement below us. The shrieking sound the spikes made when they descended re-grounded us. "I got the platform; take out those husks!" I pulled up my M-92 Mantis sniper rifle and began picked off the three Geth troops near the storage platforms.

There was something familiar about one of the bodies on the cargo floor. "Kaidan, take a look at the body on the cargo floor. Charcoal gray and red armor, about a meter away off the hazmat canister. Williams and I are going to clear the prefab on the right."

We took up positions on opposite sides of the prefab's door, "Chief, you open the door and I'll clear it."

"Wait! Wait!" The voice came from inside the shelter. "We're coming out. We're unarmed."

Three Eden Prime colonists came out; two men one woman. "My name is Powell. This is Cole and Andrea. Are we… is it over?"

"It looks like the area is clear. What happened here?"

"Those damned dock workers wanted our help loading the beacon they found. Used our heavy eezo cargo generator to get it to the tram station." It was clear that he was a disgruntled farmer.

I cut him off, needing more recent information. "Do you have anything over the last few hours? Say during the attack."

"Sorry. Ok. You saw that ship I take it?" I gave him a look that said "of course you idiot". "Well, a mess of storm clouds focused around it as it came down. We heard those things coming and we ran, locking ourselves in here. We haven't heard from any of the others since. They're probably dead."

"You don't know that!" One of the other farm hands interjected. "We made it here, its possible some of the others found somewhere to hide!"

"Sir!" Kaidan called over the comm line. "There's something you should see over here!"

"We'll alert the SAR teams to your position as soon as we can. If you'll excuse us." Williams and I began to head for the platform where Kaidan was. Not sure what he couldn't tell me over the radio, but it couldn't have been good.

"Hey Cole, we're just farmers. Maybe we should let them have that stuff." I stopped dead in my tracks causing Williams to bump into me.

"Jesus Blake, you need to learn when to shut your mouth."

"Hold up Kaidan, we're going to be delayed for a minute here." My head snapped back to the three of them. "There something you're keeping from me?"

"No. Nothing." Cole told me like I didn't overhear what he and his friend just said.

I retracted my helmet so they could see my face. The only advantage of being one of the most recognized faces amongst your own species. "Do you want to try that one again?"

"Okay, okay. We were part of a small smuggling ring. We store the stuff here before moving out. I thought there might be something we could use."

"You greedy bastard. Your friends are dying and all you can think of is to secure your assets." Williams shouted at them.

"Easy Chief."

"Yes sir. Sorry sir."

"Do you have anything of value in that shack Cole?"

"Just this pistol. Haven't fired it so I can't tell you much about it."

He handed me an M-5 Phalanx pistol; a high end military weapon. Omni-tool scans showed that it had been modified: increased rate of fire at the expense of round velocity along with a laser pointer mounted right below the barrel. I spun it in my hand to get a feel for the weight and balance. It was the exact same as an un-modded one.

"Here you go Chief." I tossed it over to her. She checked the power cell and sighted down it to get a feel for the new weapon with the laser dot on, aiming it dangerously close to the farmers.

"Now then, is there anything else you want to tell me?"

Cole's hesitation before speaking. "No. Nothing else I swear it." I was surprised at what happened next.

Ashley charged him, slamming him against the wall by the his shirt collar, the new Phalanx pushed right up against the bottom of his jaw. "Listen you selfish son of a bitch! I lot of my good friends could have used these weapons you kept for your asses. Tell the commander what he wants to know or I paint the wall with your brain."

"Powell. The guy's name is Powell. He was the guy who moved the stuff here. He's a dock worker. That's really all I know."

She looked to the woman, looking for confirmation. She instantly threw her hands up, terrified look on her face. "I-I-I swear, I never knew who it was who brought the stuff in. J-Just who guys to sell it to. Please, don't shoot me."

"Would you let me go bitch?" Cole barked at the Gunny, to which she pistol whipped him. He fell to the floor knocked out.

"Anything else you need from them sir?" She asked me.

"No." I then said to the other two "Drag him back in and lock the door. SAR teams should be coming through in a few hours."

I couldn't believe what it was that Kaidan had found. "Kaidan... is that?"

He turned the body over, showing the Turian's face. "Yes sir. It's Nihlus. Took a single round to the back of his head. Looks almost like an execution."

"You're not far off." The three of us snapped our pistols to the voice. It was a human.

"What the hell are you doing sneaking up on us like that? We nearly blew your head off."

"I'm sorry. Um... here's the thing: he wasn't killed by those machines. It was another Turian."

"What do you mean "another Turian"? It wasn't the Geth?"

"No. Your friend seemed to know the other one. He called him Saren. Anyways, the first one let his guard down. The other one then shot your friend in the back. All psycho like. He then left with the beacon on the tram."

"Wait a minute," Ashley interjected. "Who are you and why didn't the Geth find you?"

"My name is Powell. Um..." he said rubbing the back of his head. "I was already behind the crates when they attacked. I have to occasionally sneak behind the crates where the foreman can't find me for thirty or forty winks to make it through my shift. They just work us so damned hard."

"You lazy bastard!" Ashley barked at him. "You duck work then don't even help your friends while they're being slaughtered!"

"What was I supposed to do? Run out and get myself killed?"

"Stand down Chief. So Powell, you got any good equipment in those crates back there?"

"Wha-what are you talking about? What equipment?"

"Don't play dumb. You're no good at it. We know you had a small operation here and if you have any remorse in you, you'll hand over any equipment that we might be able to use. If not, I'll let Williams here beat the location out of you." I heard several bones cracking from the Chief, clearly hoping that she would get to pound the little toad through the ground. The guy had been stealing from those who swore to protect him which made me want to blow out both his kneecaps and leave him for the Geth, but I needed the information. Plus this Saren... how do you see a Turian in the middle of all of this?

"Fine! It's just a small case of grenades. Standard military issue. They're down here." He knelt down behind a crate out of our sight.

"What are you doing?"

"Getting you those grenades." He said grunting. There was a sharp clang followed by a panel flying across the floor. "Here we go." Lifting a eight cubic foot box onto a half-smashed crate in front of him. "There are about forty or fifty grenades in here. Nobody notices if a few small orders go missing from the military bulk purchases."

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Williams lunged at Powell over the crate between us, tackling him to the ground and started wailing on him. Kaidan moved to pull her off but I held up my hand. Powell deserved something for what he had done and Williams needed to exercise some anger out. Seemed like a perfect fit. At least for a few seconds.

"Chief! Off of him! NOW!" I bellowed after nearly a half minute, during which the Gunny continued to pound Powell with her fists and a non-stop barrage of obscenities. Her fist, covered in blood stopped at the peak of its arc; itching to keep going. She grunted, knowing that she wouldn't be allowed to proceed any further and stood back up.

"Sorry about that sir." Any idiot could tell she didn't really mean it, but I don't think I wouldn't have done the same in her situation,

"Just load up on grenades. Set them to ten-bangers."

I had just slipped the last one into my pocket when the clicking noise re-asserted itself. "Geth! Take cover!"

* * *

The little mud-apes had built a somewhat respectable colony Saren thought to himself. He almost hated the fact the he was about to burn it to the ground. Almost. "Are the charges set?" He asked the Geth soldier. It responded with an irritating droning noise that loosely translated as "yes". "Then set the charges. Leave nothing standing."

He advanced to the Prothean beacon activating its programming. He needed to know what was on it. And the data packet implanted in his brain would prevent any Humans from getting the data should they somehow stop the half dozen nuclear bombs he brought with him.

The beacon glowed green, raising the Turian up in the air. The information downloaded into his mind at incredible an incredible speed. But it was nothing that he didn't already know. "We're done here. Time to go." The Alliance would be arriving soon, and he wanted to make sure they saw their precious colony burn first hand. It would also eliminate nearly every Geth that had fallen during the night.

Retreating to a Geth destroyer, he ordered a squad to remain behind to ensure detonation of the nukes. No sense in taking any risks.

* * *

The few Geth that had attacked us were frantic, disorganized. Hardly what we had been fighting until recently. The attacks were becoming more and more drastic, nearly basic strategy in fact. "Powell, you dead?"

"N-no."

"Does that tram line lead anywhere else?"

"There are only two stops. Here and the far end of the line."

The fight to the tram line from there was simple enough. The large Geth was tricky. The bullets we put into it did nothing to its shield, say nothing for its armor. Kaidan lifted it up then slammed it against the wall then the ground. He jumped on it and blasted it with a couple of shotgun rounds. That put the behemoth down pretty well.

We got on the tram and keyed up the access code to run the tram down to the other end of the line. Nice and quiet. At least for the twenty minute ride to the far end. We kept quiet during the trip. Not a lot of small talk for us to do.

A torso-sized white hexagonal package was lying next to us when we got off the tram line. My HUD started flashing rad-warnings all over my visor with arrows pointing in multiple directions, one of which pointed to our package sitting next to us. "Radiological alarm: we got nukes!"

A small hail of bullets came down on us from a walkway above us. "Kaidan, take care of the bombs! Williams and I'll cover you!" Williams and I were already halfway up the stairs, guns drawn and pulling the trigger as fast as we could.

Fire then started coming at us from the left side of the offloading dock. "I got them! Stay here, cover the LT!" Ashley yelled, tapping me on the shoulder to keep from accidentally shooting her when she moved in my peripheral. She moved along one of the walkways. Nearly no cover and what there was was thin as paper, but it beat the nothing.

"We got two more up here! Opposite ends of the walk." She yelled over the comm line.

"Just finished here! Moving on to number two." He tapped me on my back when he passed me. I stood up drawing my other pistol. The rifle obscured my vision too much for my preference.

"Chief, you go up the left. I got the right!"

"Copy. I think I see three more along my side." Six! Six nuclear devices clustered in less than fifty meters. That meant they really wanted to make sure whatever was here. Add to the fact that three squads were being left behind to make sure the detonations went off, the only logical conclusion was the beacon was nearby.

"Fuckers!" Williams yelled.

"You hit?"

"Negative. They retreated back to the landing pad. They set up jammers of some kind. I can't see how many there are."

"You and I hold the entrance, Kaidan how are those bombs coming?"

"Moving for the third." I started on one of the bombs with the Chief holding the entrance to the landing pad. It was quiet, the only sound being that of our heartbeat. Working on bombs was always nerve wreaking. At least, working on large bombs was. Just me? No problem. On the bright side, if one of us screwed up we wouldn't have to worry for long. We finished with twenty-nine seconds being the smallest number on the clock; and no big boom.

"Chief, you cut the jamming?"

"Negative. Motion sensor is still mucked up all to hell."

"Ok, we'll take varying ordinances. Alenko, pistol. Chief, shotgun." I pulled out my Avenger. Rounding the corner onto the pad we could see three more spikes. They screeched dropping the poor souls who were stuck on them. Kaidan threw them up in the air with his biotics allowing me to blow them away with a couple of rounds from my rifle.

The Chief was still hesitant to shoot them, but she had no problems going after the Geth. She put a few extra rounds into them to make sure they stayed down.

What captivated all of us was the glowing alien device near the edge of the pad. _Soy you're the beacon everyone has been wanting._

"_Normandy, _this is Shepard; beacon is secure. Lock on to my signal and prep for heavy-lift."

I heard Kaidan yell my name, grabbing my arm. My head snapped around to see Williams being dragged towards the beacon. There was nothing there, but the beacon was lit green like an evergreen Christmas tree. I didn't think, I barely knew her, definitely didn't like her, but I did the dumbest thing possible: I ran straight to her. I grabbed her and threw her out of the way.

Whatever program she had tripped on the beacon had grabbed me in her place. It lifted me up the ground and downloaded something into my head. Every single muscle in my body seized up. Horribly so. I could only see a few of the images that were shoved in before I blacked out. I don't know what happened after that.

* * *

"The beacon... actual working Prothean technology. Incredible!" Ashley could hear the near childish awe in Alenko's voice.

"It wasn't doing anything like this when they dug it up." The beacon was glowing green along the center, almost like it was feeling for something to look at.

"The Geth must have activated it." She inched closer to it. It was clear that she had to be careful. Unfortunately, she wasn't careful enough.

The beacon grabbed her and started pulling her in despite her struggles. _I guess this is it. Fuck it all._ To be taken out the beacon that she was to protect... well that was just insulting. A bullet was one thing. She could deal with that, but this?

Something grabbed her from behind and pushed her out of the way. It was Shepard! She could barely believe it! The beacon then lifted him up and he screamed in agony. The beacon was doing something to him. She went to get up and push him out of the way but Alenko held her back. "No don't! You might kill him!"

"AAARRRGGGHHHH! AAHHHH!" She struggled to get free again but the LT just grabbed her even tighter.

The beacon then blew up, sending the commander flying into a large cargo container. "_Normandy! Normandy_ Do you read?! This is Lieutenant Alenko; we need IMMEDIATE med-evac!" She couldn't hear the reply the ship gave them, but it obviously wasn't good. He turned to her. "We'll have to carry him about three and a half miles. _Normandy_ won't come here. We'll have to carry him."


	6. Chapter 6: Citadel Politics

**ABLE/NOVEMBER:** _I am sooooo glad I was able to get this up faster than the last few. I'm breaking up the evidence against Saren into two chapters. And there are, coincidence, two reasons for this. The first is that it's a preventative measure against computer failure. The second is to prevent me from taking a month to upload a huge-ass chapter._

* * *

Chapter 6:

Citadel Politics

Despite how long it had been, Ashley couldn't quite pin down how she felt about Shepard. Guilty obviously; the man had risked his life to save her. But she couldn't tell if she still thought he was an ass or if they just got off on the wrong foot. "Still here are you?" The British accented voice belonged to the Normandy's doctor Karin Chakwas. Despite the cliché, she had found Chakwas to have a very good bedside manner. But the only thing Ashley needed was a good day's sleep so it wasn't exactly a fair measure.

"Old family tradition: repay your debts quick as you can. Cuts down on keeping track of who you owe and shows them you're thankful." The good doctor chuckled at her reply.

"Well you're welcome to stay here until he wakes up." She then sat down at her station and began filling out some past-due paperwork. Ashley turned her attention back to the unconscious commander lying on the bed, resuming her internal argument. If he was that pissed at me why did he save me? Maybe it was just to avoid filling out the paperwork.

* * *

My head was pounding. Whatever that beacon had done, most of it must have tried to scramble my brain. I could only decipher a few of the images, but the intent was fairly clear: death. But at the hands of what? And who was it who was killed? It was... huge. Galactic big. A war of some kind. No... not a war. It was more... precise. Like they were targeted specifically. Whatever they were, they weren't a race I had seen or read about.

"Doctor! Doctor Chakwas! I think he's waking up!" _Ohhh dammit. Not so loud please?_ I slowly sat up keeping my hand covered over my eyes. Damned hospital lights were always too bright. Ship, station or planet side. It seemed like they were all installed by the same mildly sadistic designer. Hanging my head I started rubbing the lids along with the bridge of my nose, trying to wake up the senses.

"Rise and shine commander. How are you feeling?" Doc Chakwas? What's she doing at an Eden Prime hospital?

"Like I got into a bar fight with a planet full of Krogan. What happened?" Opening my eyes I saw the confining walls of a sickbay. Normandy's sickbay. "And how did I make it back here?"

"It's my fault sir." I most definitely did not need to hear her voice. "I think I tripped some sort of defense protocol on the beacon. You had to throw me out of the way."

"You were careless. And you're damned lucky I didn't think when I saw what was happening."

"Don't be so hard on her commander. We don't know for sure that it was her that set the beacon off. Besides, she and Lieutenant Alenko carried you all the way back here. Actually, mostly her according to Kaidan."

Turning my head to her, eyebrow raised I simply asked "Three miles?"

"Point five sir. And with all due respect, you are one heavy sob sir."

"Funny." I slid off of the bio-bed onto the floor, my feet surprisingly steady. "How long was I out?"

"About seventeen hours. Though I detected some unusual brainwave activity in concurrently with your REM patterns. Do you know what that was?"

"It was a warning. A warning for all the galaxy to heed. They are soon returning. Whoa. That was... weird. I-I don't know where that came from."

"I better add that to my report." The tone in her voice was as surprised as mine was. When a doctor is as worried as I am, that triples my worry.

"Captain on deck!" Williams shouted, the pair of us snapping to attention. Since Chakwas outranked him, she simply stood at ease.

"How's our XO holding up?"

"Ready and able sir!" I snapped off.

"No physical damage." Chakwas corrected. "But I'd prefer to keep him under observation for a few more hours."

"I'm fine sir. Really."

"Very well. You're back on active duty Shepard. Give us the room please doctor?" She nodded and left quietly out the door.

"I'll be in the mess hall if anyone needs me." Ashley added in, leaving the small medical facility.

"Sir, why is she here?" Waiting until the door shut.

"Chief Williams? I asked her to be here. We're in need of a replacement for your squad and hers was killed. Seemed fitting."

"With all due respect sir, I think it's a mistake bringing her on board."

"This is_ my_ ship Shepard._ I_ make the calls around here."

"I understand that sir, but permission to speak freely?" The lack of objection was usually a good indicator for me to continue when I asked a loaded question like that. "She abandoned her unit to save herself. She admitted it. There's no way in hell that I'm willing to work someone who will screw the group for themselves."

"A lot of people said the same about you after Akuze."

"That's different sir."

"How do you figure?" He always had a way of goading me into saying what was on my mind even if I didn't want to.

"Sorry sir. I'm just pissed about loosing Jenkins. Intel dropped the ball hard. That's why things went to hell."

"Of course." He knew I was desperately trying to avoid talking about Akuze. "It's not your fault. Nor theirs. The Geth haven't been seen outside the veil in over two centuries. But Saren is our bigger problem."

"I take it you've heard of him."

"You could say that. He's a Spectre. Lost his brother after the war. He's had it out for the lot of us ever since. The man is ruthless."

"Explains why he hit Eden Prime. So what's the plan?"

"We're on our way the Citadel now, talk to the Council. We get his Spectre status revoked, find someway to take him down. I want you in the CIC when we arrive. Dismissed." I saluted him and left the medical bay. Williams and Kaidan were talking on the far side of the mess hall, next to Anderson's quarters.

"Commander. Good to see you up and about." Kaidan said with a smile. "I'll leave you two to sort that stuff out." He rounded behind the elevator tube and headed to the Command Deck.

"Glad to see you're alright." The tone she took was filled with sourness.

"Strange Williams, you don't sound to pleased."

"Let's just say I don't ever want to see anything bad happen to a fellow soldier and leave it at that."

"If you have a problem with me, you better get it out before we have a problem."

"I think we may already have a problem._ Sir_. You questioned my competency through the entire mission."

"Best way to show me you're competent is to prove it. But I don't recall inviting you back on board."

"You didn't Captain Anderson did."

I could only grunt at her response. "Come on, Captain wants us in the cockpit."

The view we had of the Citadel nebula was amazing! When the Normandy broke through the nebula we saw the fleet on guard in only their full glory including the biggest, baddest ship in known space: The Destiny Ascension. I whistled seeing such a big beauty.

"Wow. Look at the size of that ship! Its main gun could probably tear through the hull of one of our dreadnoughts in a single shot." Williams said

Joker just simply retorted "Well size ain't everything."

"Why so touchy Joker? Something you want to tell us?"

"I'm just saying you need firepower too. Otherwise it's just an over-sized glass cannon."

_"SSV Normandy, this is Citadel dock control. Send identification and wait for clearance twelve kilometers."_

"Sending now." Joker's hands flew over the console in a blur.

_"Authorization received. Proceed to bay D93, Zakera ward. We'll have a pair of skycars on station ready to transport your party to the embassy."_

When we got off the Normandy there was a security detail waiting for us along with a half dozen armored skycars. I guess they're actually taking this seriously. One of the guards ushered Williams, Alenko and I into one, Anderson into another with an elderly man.

The ride was... annoying. The pilot kept trying to ask us about what happened on Eden Prime, about how we saved the colony. We had to repeatedly tell him that we couldn't divulge any information; the word "classified" was used at least a half dozen separate times. "I should alert you, we'll need to separate to try and keep this secure." We broke hard left, darting down several alleys, going back up to the main traffic ways for a while, then into the alleys again. "Why don't we just take the direct route?"

"Seventeen vehicle crash. When these things happen, numbers climb damned fast. We'll be there in a sec." We landed on the Presidium ring next to the Human embassy after nearly two hours. "Sorry. Keepers keep changing the layout. Even the best cabbie usually can't keep the same route month to month. I hope you enjoyed your ride with Alliance Covert Operation Airlines and we hope you choose us for your next travel arrangements."

"Not 'less you can get better peanuts buddy." Ashley shut the door on the cab and double tapped the roof.

Our Councilor, Donnel Udina was less than happy when we arrived and already talking with the Council over the holographic communication terminal in his office. "If this was a Turian colony you'd be sending your fleet in."

"We don't settle colonies in unsecured space Councilor."

"No you don't. You put our people on the line so you claim all the credit!" I winced at Udina's comment, but he wasn't wrong. The Council had been using us to settle the Attican Traverse for them. Tactically wise but socially cold.

"If you expect our support, I suggest you show some respect."

"And what about Saren? What are you doing about him?"

"We will not discuss any information until the hearing. If C-Sec turns up any information it will be brought up then. Not before." The Council shut the signal off from their side.

"Bastards." He spat at the now blank wall. "I see you only brought half of your crew with you Captain. And what the hell took you so long to get here?!" Any idiot with a half-decent eye could tell you that he was a politician to the core. He would fight for you as long as the cards were in our favor, but the minute you were more trouble than your worth he'd throw you under the bus faster than you could blink.

"Just the ground team from Eden Prime. I thought you might want to question them yourself about what happened."

"I have the reports. I assume they're accurate." He was eying us like we were insane. "It'll take a some time to get you the necessary clearance to the Council chambers. You try to enter without it and C-Sec will arrest and detain you. I'll have my VI notify you when you are cleared. Come on Anderson." The two then left.

"And that's why I hate politicians." I could only smirk at her response. Guess we actually had something in common besides dislike for each other.

"Come on. We've got some time to kill. I saw a high end bar not to far from here."

"I could do with a drink or two."

"Sure. As long as I'm not the one picking up the tab."

We reached the ground floor of the embassy when a man approached us. "Are you... excuse me. Are you Ashley Williams?" He cleared his throat, wiping away a few tears that were running down his face. The accent indicated that he might be of Indian descent. "I'm sorry to impose on you, but I don't know of anyone else who might help me." _Williams?_ Why would anyone want her to help with something? She looked as surprised as I did.

"I'm sorry do I know you?"

"Not personally no. I apologize. My name is Samesh Bhatia. My wife Nirahli was in your unit."

Her eyes immediately dropped near the floor. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Thank you, but I'm not angry. The Alliance is holding her body for, as they put it "undisclosed reasons". I've spoken to the representative several times. His name is Boskner. Last I saw, he was in the embassy lounge. Could you talk to him, help me out? I just want to bring her home for her burial."

Before I could answer Williams cut in "Of course. We'll make sure you get her back. Right Commander?"

The second I was out of ear shot of Samesh I turned on the Chief. "What the hell was that? You don't make a promise like that. If we can't get her turned over to him who do you think he'll blame?"

"Sir, she was my responsibility and I let her down. Now she's being held up in red tape bullshit. He deserves to claim her; not gather dust because of a misfiling of some paperwork."

We were already going to go for the embassy lounge. It wouldn't hurt to speak with this Boskner. The door to the lounge opened and I told Alenko and Williams to grab a table. "I got the drinks." I walked up to the bartender. "Three beers, and some info."

"What information can I do for you?"

"Man by the name of Boskner; he's an Alliance official."

He nodded to a man with short black hair in an expensive-looking charcoal grey suit sitting one table over from Williams and Alenko. "And here are your beers." I pulled out a handful of credits to pay for them. "No charge. Least I can do for those who helped save Eden Prime. Word gets around" He said at my confused look.

"Sorry not happening. I'm paying whether you like it or not. Keep the change." I dropped twenty credits on the table. "Have a good day."

"Thanks man! You too." He sounded like I just gave him the biggest tip he had ever seen. Of course, it was probably twice of what the beers were worth.

I set the beers on the table and walked up to Boskner, sitting down at the table with him. "Can I help you with something sir?" He asked me.

"I really hope so. It seems there's been some kind of hiccup. Samesh Bhatia is trying to claim his wife's body. She was one of the marine casualties on Eden Prime."

He grimaced at the mention of Bhatia. "Yes, I've spoken with Mr. Bhatia a couple of times. Serviceman Nirali Bhatia died on Eden Prime as he no doubt told you. However, there isn't any 'hiccup' with the paperwork. She was killed by Geth weapons and we've never seen anything like what they use before."

"Okay so she's irradiated, toxic what have you. Why not tell him this? Let him know that there'll be a delay before he can claim her."

"Well you see that's the thing, as I said, the injuries the body sustained are rather unusual." He hesitated before continuing. "I'm with Alliance R&D. We're holding her body to try and develop a way to defend against further attacks. Those weapons tore through all but the heaviest shields and armor like they weren't even there. I'm just trying to do my part to help prevent any more suffering."

"I know how bad it was. I lost one of my own squad members. But you have to have others you can use."

"Yes but not many. Few received the new weapon injuries. Even fewer are in good enough condition to study. Beyond that, we need as many as we can for sample variances."

I hated for what I asked next. "How long should it take to finish the research? When do you think that we'll start seeing new defensive technologies?"

"Conservatively? At least two, three years. Look, I understand your position, and that of Mr. Bhatia but we only have less than a few dozen to study."

"Look, I understand what you're doing but he's hurting. And being able to bury his wife's body will help put some of those ghosts to rest."

"With all due respect Commander, you can't really do anything about it. The decision to release the body or not comes from someone far higher up. And these things have to be handled delicately." I was quickly loosing my patience with this guy. He was a pencil pusher to the bone who probably wouldn't sign off on what bottle of wine to have at a party without a dozen forms signed in triplicate.

"Then you contact them and tell them that I'll handle the delivery myself."

"You can't just walk in and take her body comm-" I had it with him and was going to end it here and now.

I grabbed him by the collar flipping him onto the table, knife drawn and gently poking at his Coretta artery. The entire lounge jumped up, a few of the patrons screaming when they saw the blade. "Her name is Nihrali Bhatia. If you insist on mauling her, you will use it." I whispered in his ear.

"C-Commander please. Th-there's no need for violence." I ignored him and continued.

"Just out of curiosity, if I were to push a little harder, who would claim your body at the morgue? A sibling? Parent?" I looked him in the eye for what I said next. "Wife? What would she think when I tell her that you refused to let another grieving widow claim their lover's body? Would she still pay for your funeral, knowing what a cold-hearted man you really were? Nihrali is getting the burial she deserves. The only question is, will you?"

"You know even if you kill me, the guards will stop you. Would you really butcher dozens for one person?"

"Oh, once I tell them what you're doing I don't think I'll have to. Besides, I've got friends in the press corps who would just_ love_ to hear how you treat military families."

"Very well commander. It was hard enough saying no to Mr. Bhatia. The last thing we want is something like this getting out. I'll see that the serviceman is on her way home by the end of the day."

"You see? That wasn't so hard was it?" Leaning back I gave him a couple light pats on the cheek and headed for the door, Williams and Alenko quickly following. "Hey Boskner, I _really_ hope you come through for me." The door shut behind us before he could retort. _Political little prick._

"Okay so what the hell was that?!" Kaidan and Ashley asked me, nearly in unison.

"What?" I asked, acting like nothing had happened.

"What do you mean "what"? You looked like you were going to bleed him right there!"

"No way he'd do that." Kaidan defended me. "You weren't actually going to kill him. Right?"

"No. I just needed to make him think I was about to." My omni-tool pinged a message from Anderson. Simply telling us that we had been granted access to the Citadel Tower. "Let's go deliver the good news. After that we're heading straight to the Council chambers. Udina just got us the clearance."

Samesh was sitting on a bench just a few feet from where we left him at the embassy entrance. "Do you have good news Chief Williams? Is my wife coming home?"

"Actually the commander is the one with the good news for you Mr. Bhatia."

"I had to twist his arm a bit, but your Boskner promised me that your wife will be heading home soon."

"Samesh? I don't know if this helps, but Nihrali spoke of you often. She couldn't wait to get back. Said that you two were planning on opening a restaurant. She always had this... beyond joyful look in her eyes when she thought of it. And of you."

"Thank you Ms. Williams. It does." Tears were welling up in both of their eyes. She then hugged him.

"I'm sorry." She said as she pulled away wiping a tear from her cheek.

"Thank you. Both of you." He then left, presumably to begin planning her funeral. Something that was never a fun task.

"Anderson is waiting for us. Now which way is the damned tower?" Realizing none of us knew which way to go.

"I apologize, but there is no "damned tower" on the Citadel. If you are looking for nearby points of interest, the Citadel Tower is nearby. It is the home to the Council chambers. There is also the Krogan Memorial statue and the Relay sculpture."

"Uhh... what was that?" A blue-ish purple and red hologram of an Asari appeared in between the three of us.

"Fucking smart ass VI." Williams growled. I had had a few VIs that had a few jokes programmed into them; annoyed me to no end. If we had anything else in common we might just end up friends. Creepy thought. But in the last hour or so, I wasn't sure why, but I didn't feel so hostile towards her.

"Is there a location I can help you find?" It asked.

"Yes. Can you give us directions to the Citadel Tower?"

"Affirmative. An elevator that can take you to the tower is located one floor below you. Please proceed down the ramp." It said extending its hand out towards a pathway that looped down out of sight behind a nearby overpass. "Once at the bottom of the ramp proceed approximately nineteen standard feet. Enter on your right. Press the red button and-" We had already left it standing there, making it look like it was talking to no one.

Keying up the final destination, the VI chimed its voice. "Final destination: Citadel Tower. Council Chambers." Same one as the guide.

"Damn that voice is annoying. Last time I heard one that obnoxious I had it plugged in my head."

"Um... what?" Williams asked me.

"Experimental VI hardware. Volunteers are often N7. We're already the best, so we can tell the military just how much of an edge it gives without putting too many at risk. We only get it of course once R&D makes sure it won't be lethal."

"So you got a VI in your head?"" She couldn't believe what I was saying.

"Its name is 'Milla'. Got it installed four months before Akuze. Hurts like hell when I... talk with it. Went under the knife for it. It's intuitive, faster than a standard VI because it's linked directly to my conscious thoughts. Lets me grab my weapons quicker, change ammunition types without lowering my gun, the list goes on."

"So why call it 'Milla'?" Kaidan asked.

"Ugh. God I forgot not to mention the name. Fuck me. Okay, it was... one of the technicians who working on the prototype. She um... named it... after herself. She ah... had a... thing for me. She even... put a few... messages on it." I grimaced at the last part. They were less messages and more fantasies that she recorded.

The two of them burst out laughing, nearly falling on the ground inside the elevator. "Shut the hell up and that is an order from your superior officer."

They were desperately trying to regain their composure. "So did you two ever?" Ashley asked in between heaves.

"No." I said a little too abruptly, telling them that there was a story.

"But?" She followed up.

"She tried to gain access to the OR. And recovery room. Repeatedly." The fell onto the floor howling.

The door opened onto the tower's chamber level, a pair of Turian C-Sec guards standing next to a screening room. "Is there a problem?" One asked upon seeing them on the floor.

"No. I sharply said. They're just making the biggest mistake of their career by laughing at their CO."

They smirked at that. "I see. I hate to inform you but you'll have to go back. Only individually authorized personnel are allowed past."

"Councilor Udina gave us clearance." I activated my omni-tool, showing them the authorization orders.

We continued on, past the three checkpoints repeating the process each time before we finally got to the chambers themselves. There were a pair of Turians arguing nearby us, one of them apparently had been tasked with a fruitless investigation given what he was saying. "Just give me more time. Stall them!"

"Stall the Council?" The other balked. "You're out of your mind Vakarian. No one stalls the Council." He was likely this Vakarian's superior.

"So the only witness against Saren," My ears perked up hearing his name. "Turns up dead less than twenty hours later, not two hours before the hearing and they do nothing? They're not going to do anything! This is a farce!"

"Excuse me, what did you say?" I interjected.

"Just a minute human." The other said. "Your investigation is over Garrus. You have other cases to attend to, I suggest you do just that." He then left to attend to his own matters. Garrus let out a deep, quiet caw; likely the Turian equivalent to a grunt.

"Your name, Vakarian was it?"

"Yes. You must be Shepard." He extended out his hand. "Officer Garrus Vakarian. C-Sec Investigations Division. I read the reports on what happened on Eden Prime. I'm sorry for the loss of so many of your people." He seemed rather sincere, but the fact that he turned up nothing on Saren made me suspicious of him. Could have been that everything Spectres did was classified or he hid or destroyed any evidence that he did find. Likely the latter. I rarely trusted strangers human or not.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. What was that about the witness turning up dead?"

"About thirty-five minutes ago your dock worker was found dead in the safe house. He had a security detail of more than twenty C-Sec officers. All highly trained. They were gassed or otherwise incapacitated. When they came to, Powell was dead. On the surface it looks like his heart failed, but I don't think so. He was murdered. There were only a handful of people who knew the location and they all checked out. Even I didn't know where he was."

"And you don't have any other evidence on him?"

"Nothing." I could hear the rage in his voice as he shook his head. "He's a Spectre. That means everything he touches is classified. I couldn't even tell you whether he uses an eezo enhanced toothbrush or a manual one. Not that anyone would really be interested in that."

"So it's a dead end. FUCK!"

"I've got a few other possible leads, but as you heard, I need some time to confirm them. But he's dirty. Like you humans say I feel it in my gut. You had better go. The Council doesn't like to be kept waiting. Good luck."

We passed by a couple of trees in the center of the chamber grounds. "Look a lot like cherry trees." Ashley commented. "Be a nice place for a picnic."

Anderson waved us up to another set of ascending stairs. "Come on. The hearing has already started." We joined Udina, a few steps behind him.

"How is it that you just plan to let him go!?" He yelled, furious at the Council. "The only witness was murdered and none of you find it suspicious?! Stop sheltering him!"

"I would watch your tone Councilor." The Turian councilor, Sparatus responded. "You have no evidence yet you continue to make hollowed accusations."

"Besides," The Salarian councilor added in. "The testimony of a single traumatized dock worker is hardly compelling evidence."

I eyed Saren on a massive hologram projector, sure that he was the one who killed Powell. He was looking down on us, smugly, trying to hide a sadistic grin. I was certain of it. And the way that Anderson was looking at him, he knew it too.

"Councilors, please." Tevos, the Asari councilor interjected before the whole thing turned into a shouting match. "Focus on the issue at hand. Without any further evidence, I vote for a motion to call this hearing to a close."

"Wait! What about Shepard's vision?" I told Anderson that I didn't want to use it but he evidently didn't see any other alternatives at this point.

"Are we allowing dreams as testimony now? How am I to prove my innocence against that?"

"Well it would sure as hell help if you actually were innocent. What's the matter Saren? Afraid to show yourself in person?"

"Ah Commander Shepard. You must be Anderson's new protégé. Nice work with the beacon. It's a shame so many of your fellow apes died."

"SCREW YOU ASSHOLE!" Williams shouted at him.

It would have been pointless to try and subdue her, so I focused on Saren. "The beacon's existence on Eden Prime was top secret. The only way for you to know about it was if you were there yourself!"

"Hardly. When Nihlus died his files were automatically sent to me."

"You mean when you executed him!"

"I resent your accusations commander. Nihlus was a fellow Spectre and a friend._ I_ was the one who brought him in to the Spectres."

Anderson joined back into the argument. "That just let you catch him off guard!"

"Gentlemen, please!" Tevos once again interjecting before it turned into an open pissing match. "If there is no further evidence you have to present then we will reach our verdict. Commander?"

"I won't bother wasting my breath. You made your decisions before you even came into this 'hearing'."

The councilors stepped back from their podiums and began discussing quietly. Reaching a decision quickly they returned to their previous positions. "Given a lack of evidence, this council finds Saren innocent of the accusations brought forth by the Systems Alliance. Council adjourned."

"I'm glad to see that justice was served." Saren said before the thirty plus foot hologram of him flickered off.

"It was a mistake bringing you into that meeting Anderson. The Council was barely willing to listen to us before. Having you there made them question our motives. You are no longer to pursue any further on this investigation; I'm placing Shepard in charge of it."

I protested Udina's decision. "You can't just cut the Captain out of the investigation like that!"

"No he's right Shepard. I can't let them use my past with him as an excuse to throw out any evidence we find."

"Well without Powell what the hell are we going to do now?"

"What about Garrus? That C-Sec detective." Kaidan offered. "He said he had a lead or two to check up on."

"Well that's great LT, but how are we going to find him?"

"I've got a contact in Citadel Security who can probably find him. His name is Harkin."

"Forget it." Anderson said, having heard of his reputation before. " If he wasn't one of our first officers here he'd have been thrown out years ago."

"I take it you know him?"

"He's a drunk. Probably at Chora's Den down in the wards right now. He's been written up repeatedly for being drunk on the job, taking bribes, so on."

"If you two don't mind, I know someone I can contact." I sent a message to an old "friend". _[It's me. Meet me at Chora's Den in the wards twenty. Need some information. Don't worry, won't take much time so you can get back to whatever you got going on. And start anything this time. I don't want a repeat of what happened in the bar back in Rio. -'Angel']_

"If you'll excuse me, I have someone I need to meet." I nodded politely to Udina and saluted Anderson. "Come on. We're going down to the wards." I said to Williams and Alenko. I hoped that I wouldn't need their help, but I couldn't just tell them to sit and kick their heels until I came back.

Keying up "Chora's Den; wards" on the elevator we descended into the dirtier, slightly purer side of the Citadel.


	7. Chapter 7: Private Investigations

Chapter 7

Private Investigations

We were a little late getting down to Chora's Den. It was a dingy "gentleman's club" a few minutes off of the Presidium. I could hear the music pulsing out from behind several bulkheads. It was pretty much what I expected when I walked in: a strip club. There were a couple of dancers on a pedestal above circle bar in the center of the room, a few others dancing on a table in front of various races. Most of the dancers were Asari along with a few Human women in the mix; most were redheads. Not one of the "workers" wore anything more than a thong, including the bartenders. Every employee on the floor was a gorgeous top-heavy woman.

"A million light-years from where Humanity started, and we walk into a bar filled with half-naked women shaking their asses on a stage. I can't figure out if that's funny or sad." Kaidan and I chuckled at the unfortunate accuracy of her statement.

"I think it's both. Stay by the door and keep your eyes peeled." Just because the workers couldn't hide a gun in their "clothes" didn't mean that someone else couldn't. The place almost reminded me of _Hathor's_ back in Rio. Good irony. I only hope that it would end better this time around.

"Where are you going to be?"

"At the bar of course." I sat down and waited for my old friend to show up. We had an arrangement. Or rather, the Alliance had an arrangement: keep the smuggling to non-hazardous materials including nothing that could pack more punch than an off the assembly line pistol, and a blind eye was turned so long as good, solid intel was provided for the higher end operatives who couldn't call in on official channels. "Mojito please. And for god's sake, _don't _put an umbrella in it."

"Still remember my favorite drink huh? We both know I'm never going to sleep with you so why keep trying." I chuckled under my breath at the comment. Was there the whole time and I never heard.

* * *

Kaidan was standing as door guard with Ashley, half wishing to get something to drink half wishing he could leave for someplace quieter. Nightclubs and the like weren't really his thing. The women here were gorgeous that was for sure, he just didn't like girls who threw themselves at guys like they did. He did his best keeping an eye on anyone who approached Shepard, but Chora's Den was full of... distractions.

The front door opened, drawing his attention. Who came through it kept it. A woman who looked like she could have been sculpted by an artist strutted through. She wore barely any makeup yet his eyes were drawn straight to her face. For a moment. The pair of deep, electric blue eyes winking at him, her lips making a seductive kiss. Her fiery red hair hanging half way down the back of her white semi-sheer tank-top that was probably a size or two too small for her large bust. The bottom half of this lady was as eye catching as the top with her black leather skirt that barely covered her bottom. He could also make out the trace of a red thong underneath her shirt. Assuming you could call it one. She looked like she couldn't be a day over twenty-two.

"Well hello cyutie." She cooed, brushing her middle and index finger on the under side of his chin. He started desperately going through his mind, racking it for anything to distract and counter the swell that was forming in his pants. _Spiders. No! Weapon cleaning. Um... oh God that is a tight ass!_ The woman clearly got off on turning guys on. And Kaidan was having a hard time trying not to think of helping get her off in his own way.

"Hey Lieutenant?" Ashley's voice snapping him back into his head. "Better put your tongue back in your mouth before someone trips over it!" _Damn it._ He hadn't realized just how slack his jaw went, drool dangerously close to flowing over his lip.

"Hmm? Oh. Right." Both of their jaws immediately dropped when they saw her straddle the seat next to Shepard and began talking with him.

"He called a _hooker?!_" Ashley saying exactly what Kaidan was thinking. Their eyes went wide when she hit him.

* * *

"Still remember my favorite drink huh? We both know I'm never going to sleep with you so why keep trying." I chuckled under my breath at the comment. Was there the whole time and I never heard.

"Hey there AJ." She immediately smacked me in the back of the head. "Ow." It really hurt, but we had our own system worked out.

"How many times have I told you _not_ to use my real name in public?!" She hissed. "You trying to screw me?"

"Sorry. Which one is it this time? And what's with you and the sex?"

"It's been awhile okay? And it's 'Harley'."

"So what's "awhile" for you, like six days?" I jabbed at her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, I heard about Jenkins. I'm sorry. Kid had potential."

"How the hell _do_ you get all this information?" Every N7 operative in the last five years had used AJ as a information contact at some point. She had "washed" from the program when she had semi-illegally obtained information on half of the instructors in the ICT facility back at Rio de Janeiro and been employed as an "independent" information specialist. Basically operatives called her up whenever we needed. Each one used a different code name for her. On her request of course.

"I have my ways." I saw her look back to the door. _No way she's already... _I saw Kaidan trying to avert his gaze.

"Hands, and other parts off the kid. He's still pretty green."

She sighed. "Fine. But if he offers I'm not saying 'no'. So what is you need?"

"Location of one Garrus Vakarian. He's a Turian C-Sec officer."

"The one tasked with investigating Saren? I know where he is. You could have just gotten that with a beer you know."

"Thought I'd play it safe. So where is he?"

"Med clinic a few floors up. Run by Dr. Chloe Michel. Don't know much more than that. You know where the main entrance is from the Presidium?" I nodded. "Coming out of the entrance just head left. Going down the stairs gets you to C-Sec HQ. Hook around it to get to the clinic."

"Thanks Harley."

"Hey there." A pair of drunken Batarians approached us. Or, more accurately, AJ. "How about we have a little fun."

"Listen, I'd love to, but I'm in the middle of something."

"If it's an issue of money we can pay." One of them moved his hand onto her ass.

"I'm not a hooker asshole. Either remove your hand or I will."

"What do you think?" He said to his partner, hand still on AJ's posterior. "Urnia re'ir maksh'ta shullagalag tor. Re'ir yestk chang." He then squeezed, the other hand moving for her breasts. _Oh fuck. This is gonna end like Rio. _I called one of the bartenders over before things got too out of hand.

"Ma'am, you might want to duck soon."

"What? Why?"

Sure enough, it did end just like Rio. AJ spun around him, keeping hold of the arm that was on her rear, breaking the hand. The other Batarian grabbed me by the hair and slammed my face into the counter. I shoved my elbow into his face, then returning the favor, I grabbed his head and slammed it into the bar counter. Twice. I then delivered an open palm strike between his mouth and nose, hitting both.

AJ was still working on the other one, the rest of the bar starting to erupt into a large brawl. She slammed her high heeled foot into his top eye, spinning him into an arm bar and breaking it at the elbow. Somebody threw a bottle across the bar. I ducked, the bottle barely missed smashing into the center of the bar. "That's why." I said to the bartender who poked her head back up from behind the counter.

Ashley and Kaidan joined in, keeping close together to keep from being hit from behind. While AJ and I kept our backs together as best we could. "I thought I told I _didn't_ want this ending like Rio!" I smashed my fist into the eye socket of one of the Krogan bouncers. I knew that if I didn't knock him the hell out and fast, the blood rage would kick in and I, and likely everyone else in the club would be dead.

I charged him, inflicting a spinning jump kick while trying to keep from being hit by the near dozen and a half others in the club. Landing on the ground I shot my legs out, breaking his kneecaps. Rotating back over on my back I swung my leg up, bringing my foot into his face. Krogans are tough, but hit them in the face enough times and they go down just like anyone else.

A couple of shotgun blasts rang out in the bar. "Everyone chill the fuck out!" Ashley yelled. "I have had it with you idiots so here's how this is going to work: everyone sets down their weapons and goes back to their drinks and dances. Anyone dumb enough to do otherwise, my bullets will be more than happy enough to get to know your various organs." There were a couple of thuds as the unconscious but still being beaten hit the ground and a couple of clinks as some set their glasses gently down.

We walked out of the bar, my head still a bit dizzy from the smash. AJ was no where to be seen. "Exactly like Rio. Why am I not surprised?" My omni-tool pinged me. Message from AJ. _[Sorry about that. Good to see your skills are still sharp. Need to make it a habit to end meetings with a fight. Helps to sell that I don't "officially" work for N7. Again, sorry Angel. Tell you what, next round is on me.]_ Typical AJ.

"So who exactly was that?"

"Long story Lieutenant. Tell you when we're not being overheard." We headed through the markets in the wards. Reminded me of the flee markets in the bay area in San Fran during basic. Walking past a balcony overlooking all five ward arms, we were just... entranced. We saw them coming in to dock. But in person? That was something else entirely.

"Big place." Kaidan said. He nearly looked like he was trying to see the people on the level below us.

"That your professional opinion LT? Williams doing the exact same thing.

"This place is more city than station. Just look at it."

"There must be millions here. It can't be possible to track everyone coming and going." Kaidan's eyes were darting around, trying to see just how far he out he could still distinguish a skycar from building.

"Jump Zero is a porta-john compared to this place. And it's our biggest deep-range station."

"Jump Zero was big, but this... this is a whole different scale. Just look at the ward arms. How do they keep 'em from flying apart?"

"Starting to see why they're keeping us back. Wonder how many different species are here alone."

"They probably just want to keep everything running together. Difficult enough keeping so many different cultures together."

"Or maybe they just don't like humans."

"Can't see a reason why they wouldn't. Think about it, we've got oceans, beautiful women, that little thing called love. According to every old vids, we have everything they want."

"Yeah, and f you expect to see me in a tinfoil miniskirt and thigh high boots I'm getting dinner first. Sir."

"That'll be enough Chief."

"It's alright Kaidan. I don't think we could handle seeing her in a skirt."

"Damn... straight you can't." I guess she wasn't quite sure how to rebuttal what I just said, so went for a compromising surrender.

Continuing down the corridor, Doctor Michel's clinic was surprisingly tucked away. The door slid open and our day just got worse from there.

She was being threatened by a couple of what looked like gang members. Garrus was remaining hidden behind a pillar. He already had his pistol out. Since they weren't talking with him, he was simply waiting for a clean shot."Smart move with the Quarian doc. Now keep smart. If Garrus comes back arou- SHIT! ALLIANCE!" The one who was threatening the doctor spun her around, using her as a human shield, drawing his pistol. The other two who were with him pulled shotguns of their own.

Garrus in turn, rolled around from behind cover. Keeping low he fired a single shot at the hostage taker. The round cut straight through his neck, severing every artery causing blood to be gushed onto Doctor Michel's coat. He collapsed on the floor spasming, blood still flowing out at a high rate. The other two fumbled, not sure which to go after: the military squad or the C-Sec agent who just shot their comrade. They never got the chance to decide. Kaidan slammed them against the wall with a biotic throw. I ran and leaped over the counter slamming my foot into the head of one of them, causing his head to once again strike the pristine bulkhead wall.

The last of the bad interrogation squad was trying to scramble for his weapon. I slammed my booted foot on it, his fingers caught in the grip. I already had Castor drawn and pointed at his head. "Ah ah ah! Let it go or I end you."

"If you would excuse me real quick commander," Garrus moved past us and put a pair of handcuffs on the survivors. "You two are under arrest for hostage taking, attempted murder and threatening the safety of a Citadel citizen. You have the right to remain silent and blah-blah-blah." He delivered a quick blow to the conscious one, knocking him out. "Perfect timing Shepard. You gave me a clear shot at him."

"What the fuck was that! You have any idea how close you came to killing her?"

"I- there wasn't time to- Doctor Michel, I'm sorry. Are you hurt?"

"No. I'm fine. Thank you." She had taken a towel out of a cabinet and was trying to wipe away the blood. But since most of it was down her back, she was having a rather hard time of it. Kaidan and Ashley in the mean time, were trying to keep the pool from the dead hostage taker from expanding any further.

"Care to tell us who those people were Doctor? We can help you out."

"They were sent by Fist. He wanted to keep my quiet about the Quarian."

"Quarian? And what does Fist have to do with Saren?"

"She said she had some information about Saren, that he was the one who attacked Eden Prime."

"What happened? From the top."

"She came in about an hour or so ago. Someone had taken a shot at her, modded rounds. I treated them but she disappeared right after. I told her that she should get in contact with Fist. He could get the information she had to the right people."

"Not anymore. Fist abandoned the Broker. He's working for Saren now."

"He what? That's... Saren must have made him quite an offer."

"So where do we find Fist?"

"He runs that club Chora's Den a few levels down."

"Yeah I know the place. Shit this isn't going to end well."

"Why? All we have to do is go down and talk with him. Lay on a little pressure if we need to." He paused for a moment before continuing. "You part of that bar fight weren't you?"

I awkwardly rubbed the back of my neck. "Mmm... maybe a punch or two."

"You're talking about that massive brawl in the Den? Man that was the most fun I've had ." Ashley quipped.

"Well. Damn. That makes things difficult. Then again, there was a Krogan who was making a few veiled death threats against Fist before the fight broke out. His name is Wrex. He'd still be at C-Sec HQ."

"Bringing in a tank that said it wants to kill you doesn't spell "cooperate". More of "we're here to kill you". Not exactly how I plan on doing this."

"I don't know commander. Having a Krogan on our side could come in handy. Half of these clubs hire the heavy-hitters as body guards. Be nice to have one on our side for once."

"Okay then, lets move out."

We turned to leave, Garrus jumping in front of us. "Wait, let me go with you."

"You're a Turian." I didn't entirely trust him. He was on my side that wasn't the issue. The issue was how brashly he acted. "Why do you want to bring him down?"

"I couldn't prove it in my investigations but I know Saren is dirty. Like you humans say I can feel it in my gut."

"Talk is cheap." I countered. I needed to see just how committed he was.

"Saren is a traitor to the Council, and DISGRACE to my people. By the end of the day I'll be ordered on an indefinite leave of absence. I'm willing to see this through to the end. Whichever way it goes."

"Very well. Just no more John McClayne shit. We work as a team, we follow each others leads. Understood?"

Nodding, "Your command, your lead." He said.

"Okay then, lets go meet our big bad Krogan."

Rounding the stairs heading to the lower level, we boarded the cramped elevator taking us to C-Sec HQ.

"So Garrus," Kaidan started trying to break the awkward silence. "You sure about this? Quitting C-Sec?"

"Chasing a rouge Spectre across the galaxy as opposed to being buried by rules and regulations daily? I'd say that beats C-Sec."

"So why join C-Sec then?"

"You could say it's a tradition. My family has been law enforcement since before the Unification War. Almost two thousand years. Red tape made me want to leave, helping bring criminals to justice kept me around."

The door opened and we began to spread out to look for Wrex. It didn't take long to find the large Krogan. Standing nearly seven feet tall, his red forehead plates matched the red _Mercenary _armor he wore. Turned out that it matched his eyes as well. Red as the blood that flowed through my veins. Needless to say it was a bit creepy. You could almost say his entire color scheme was bathed in blood. He was already on his way back out, checking his rifle with a large, nasty looking shotgun on the lower part of his back.

"You're Shepard." He wasn't asking. He knew who I was, likely what I was about to do.

"You know who I am?"

"Of course. Even to Krogan you're famous. I don't know of anyone else who could have made it out of a maw nest like that or Elysium never mind both. And as a fellow hunter I'm going to warn you once. I'm going to kill Fist."

"Humans have a saying: the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Fist has information I need. Depending on why it is he's all yours."

"I was hired by the Shadow Broker to kill him and I'm being payed royally. That's all I needed to know."

"Depending on what he's done then he'll be all yours." I whistled loudly to call the others.

"Here's the plan: we go in two teams. Team One is myself, Wrex and Ashley. We go in first, we go in hard and as heavy as we can. Garrus, Kaidan you're Team Two. Take the long way around. Take the elevator back to the clinic then proceed on foot. Once we're in, Wrex and Kaidan will hold the bar. As long as you can keep them at the entrance we should be fine. The rest of us will go and get the information on the Quarian from Fist. Any questions?"

No one asked anything, except for Wrex as to when he got to kill Fist. I simply told him that I would call if Fist had gone too far and deserved it. "I don't leave jobs half finished Shepard."

The elevator ride to Chora's Den was as uncomfortable as the one to C-Sec. "So Wrex, you don't have any trouble killing your own kind? I thought the Krogans were infected with a sterility plague." Williams asked.

"We are. But any we fight are either on Saren's payroll or too stupid to know better. Killing the former is just business. Killing the latter is a favor to the universe. Anyone who is willing to help a psycho Spectre deserves to be put down. Don't much care who it is."

"Wrex big guy, you and I are going to get along just fine." Williams said to him. She then proceeded to talk shop with him, asking the question that all soldiers ask: shields vs combat plating. He stated that due to his physic and natural habits to charge in, that plating served more use. Williams offered that half and half would be better. Allowing for heavier hits but still providing protection to avoid the need to frequently replace the armor.

As our speed decelerated I sent a message to Team Two _[Doors opening. Just follow the gunfire and you shouldn't get lost..]_ I reached for Pollux and Castor, Ashley for her assault rifle. Wrex however, took his shotgun and pushed me behind him. I turned on the tech-enhanced shielding glowed red, nearly tripling the defensive capabilities of N7 heavy armor.

"Too quiet. They know we're coming. Stay behind me. Let me show you how a true Krogan fights." Wrex charged in, hitting first couple of guards with his shotgun not even bothering to shoot them. The bullets didn't even seem to slow him down. In fact, he just moved even faster each bullet making him madder as he went.

"Ashley take the right! Keep Wrex covered! I got the left!" The experimental tech armor boost kept my shields up as we fought through the bodyguards.

"AAGH! FUCK! Shields are gone! Shepard, we've got some on top of the bar!" Ashley yelled. "They've got me pinned down!"

"Team Two here! We booked it from the get go." Kaidan shouted. I could hear him over the gun fire as opposed to in my head from our in-helmet communication system. "I got them. Just focus on the others!" Hearing a whooshing sound and feeling the cold air surround us, Kaidan threw himself up onto what was the guards thought would be the one safe place. The unconscious bodies falling down from the outer-most parts of the club were due to some intense biotic output from Kaidan.

By this point there were only two left taking cover behind a pair of shipping containers. Kaidan threw up a biotic barrier as he jumped back down, extending it to keep all of the plasma fire from hitting us. Thrusting his arms out, the barrier extended unidirectionally towards the crates. The crushing force between the Citadel bulkheads and the crates killed the final two guards.

Kaidan collapsed on Ashley's shoulder. "Are you hit LT?"

"No. No. It's just that... oh man. That took a lot more out of me than it should have. Permission to sit down Commander?"

"Granted. Wrex, Garrus stay here. Williams and I will get him."

"Sorry Shepard, but I'm going with in. You'll need some back-up." Wrex stomped on and smashed the door panel with his gun.

Two human warehouse workers dropped the crates they were carrying for their pistols. "Stop right there or we'll shoot you!"

"Just turn around a walk away." The other barked.

Wrex clearly wanted to shoot them both and he could probably do it with a single shot from any gun, but I kept him from doing so. "You two listen. We just killed three dozen actual guards. Do you two really think you can stop us with your peashooters? Red here," I motioned to Wrex. "Is being payed to blow your boss away. And your boss' boss is responsible for a bunch of her friends," I nodded to Ashley. "and mine. And you're in all of our ways."

"Man fuck this shit!" The first one put his pistol away and the other followed his lead.

"Yeah Fist doesn't pay us enough to get shot." They left keeping their eyes down. They were terrified of Wrex. Any sane person would be.

"Wrex I need you and Garrus to guard the- FUCK!" Wrex had headed past us and smashed the office door in. He walked in and three loud shotgun blasts followed him. "WREX! I need him a live dammit!" If he killed Fist then our lead on the Quarian would go more sour faster than a rotten lemon.

Lucky for me, Wrex had some self-control. Unfortunately he also enjoyed shooting things. Fist was lying on the ground missing the bottom half of his right leg was lying about two and a half feet away from the rest of him. "He's alive. And he's wounded so it'll make it easier for you to interrogate him. I also applied the medi-gel. I know how fussy you humans get when you're bleeding."

"Wha-what do you want? You kill my guards, smash my offices up and shoot me? Whose paying you? I'll double it if you tell me. Triple _that_ if you kill them in return."

"Unfortunately for you this isn't something you can buy yourself out of. I need to know what you did with the Quarian. She has information I need and I need to know where she is."

"Why do need to know?"

I put an overly acted disappointed look on my face. "Not the answer I was looking for Fist." I pulled my knife and lightly nicked one of his arms that was grasping his severed limb. He screamed out in agonizing pain. "I know it hurts friend, but I need that information."

"She isn't here."

"Not the answer I was looking for either. But it's an improvement. Where is she?"

"She wanted to meet with the Broker. I told her that's who I was. She demanded a face-to-face meeting."

"Impossible." Wrex said. "Even I was hired through a middle man. Who was probably hired through one in turn."

"No shit. Anyway, it's not his people who will be meeting her. Saren's will. They'll get rid of her and the evidence she has."

I grabbed him by the throat and slammed him against a wall, the knife going under my hand to support his weight. "You tell me where you sent her and when it is before I slice your lying head off."

"It's in two minutes. It's near the market entrances. Alleyway just off of the entrance from the way back. Just don't kill me!" I dropped him, letting his remaining leg collapse under the weight. An OSD disk fell out of his jacket pocket and rolled onto the floor. "So am I free to go?"

I plugged it into the reader on my suit and scanned it quickly over it. I only caught a few of what he was doing over the last few weeks. There multiple drug deals, murders and even some slave trading. This was only what I got off of a skim. There was no way I was going to let someone like this loose. "Hmph. I don't make deals with scumbags like you. Wrex go ahead and do your thing."

"What? NO!" His scream was cut off by Wrex's shotgun blast.

He took a picture with his omni-tool. "For evidence."

The gunfire had been coved up by Fist's screams. Now we could hear the reinforcements I was worried about arriving when we hit. Kaidan back on his feet. He and Garrus had fallen back to our position. "Sorry for bringing a few extra friends to the party Shepard." Kaidan said.

"They seem like nice people." I fired Pollux and Castor back at Fist's backup. I didn't need to actually hit them, just force them into cover so we could advance.

"Sorry. Think they had a little too much to drink at the bar."

"A good hit will sober 'em up. RAAAHHH!" Wrex charged ahead yet again.

A minute thirty was on the clock. No time to deal with them traditionally.

I holstered my pistols and went for the shotgun. _Milla, riot protocol. Now. _The riot protocol was put into all weapons for N7 operatives. They wouldn't pack much punch but would give it a rate of fire of a standard M-3 Predator. The idea was to provide for non-lethal force for when a target needed to be captured alive or for hot extractions. It would of course still kill someone at point blank range it would still kill them.

"FOLLOW ME AND DON'T STOP MOVING!" I charged in like Wrex, moving along side the left side.

I fired at everyone in my sights that I saw. The rounds knocked them back into the walls of the bar the rest of the team presumably shot them.

I ran out of the bar and into the corridor to the marketing district. Forty-five seconds until the Quarian would be killed.

Slamming into the wall as I turned down into the alley. I could hear the footsteps of at least one of the others behind me. Wrex's heavy footsteps were a farther behind. Running across a bridge between buildings I pushed my legs to their limit. _Faster, faster, faster would be better!_ Seventeen seconds left.

I skidded to a stop at the top of a short series of stairs. At the bottom was a Quarian in purple attire. There were ten of Saren's closing in on her and she was being stared down the barrel of nine guns. And a nasty-looking short sword. _Time for a diversion_.

* * *

Crucic was glad he had gotten the order from Saren. He hadn't had nearly enough fun recently. He had even took to changing his facial markings to a white skull. The order to kill this Quarian didn't say how he was to do it, just to get it done. Unfortunately, he hadn't decided on whether to killer her by slicing her to little pieces and feed them to his Varren or let the infections do the job and hand her over whole.

Then again, this suit rat had quite the curves. _Maybe I'll just keep her for myself..._ "Do you have the data?" He stroked her shoulder. _Oh yes, she would make a very nice addition to my collection._ Crucic kept a personal collection of various individuals to learn the best way to cut into them without killing them. He also kept them for more... lascivious reasons.

She knocked his hand away. He could have resisted, but it didn't seem worth it yet. "What's going on here? Where's Fist?"

"He'll be along shortly. Do you have the data?" He repeated.

"Forget it. I'm out of here; the deal is off." Tali turned to leave. This gave Crucic extremely happy. He quickly typed out a message to his team. _[Just keep her from leaving. I'll deal with her myself.]_

He pulled his krothan dagger and slid up behind her pressing his pelvis against her backside. "I don't think you're going anywhere sweetheart." He started to slide in the slit between the mask and the rest of her helmet. "Now, first you're going to tell me if you- AARGH!"

Crucic was so focused on the girl that he failed to notice the others that suddenly arrived. A knife flew into his shoulder. The same one that was holding his own knife. A hail of gunfire then came down on him and his team.

* * *

I pivoted on my front foot and spun around. When I faced the assassination team again I released my combat knife from my hand. I reached for Pollux and started firing down on them nearly indiscriminately; the riot settings were still in effect so I wasn't too concerned about hurting our Quarian. I lept off of the top of the stairs swapping out my pistol for the collapsible combat staff.

Slamming it down on one of the head of one of the Salarians and back up on his face. Each hit sent an electric pulse through his body as it went flying in the air. I moved on his partner, slamming it into another Salarian's shins from the front. The way their legs bend made him slam down into the ground. Slamming it through his back; his blood started glowing a florescent orange with electric green bolts sparking out from the wound as he choked out a death rattle.

"Batter up!" I screamed as I knocked the head off of one of the humans. I ended the rest of them almost as quickly as the others. The Turian who initially went after the Quarian was getting back on his feet. "You made a big mistake fucking with my job pal." I raised my arms up and got ready to finish him. He slammed into me, driving my own knife that was embedded in his shoulder into my hip between the armor pieces. My staff flew out of my hands as I hit the ground.

I instinctively hit him repeatedly in his mandibles. He rolled away, twisting my knife as he pulled it out. Both of us struggled to our feet standing less than a meter from each other. He had both knives and I couldn't pull my gun quick enough to shoot him. Spinning both his knife and mine in an overly dramatic fashion demonstrating that he was in control of the fight. "Any last words human?" He asked.

"Yeah. You're a moron who should have killed me when you had the chance." He smirked in response to what I said. "See ya asshole!" His chest exploded in a brilliant display of blue blood; Ashley was kneeling at the top of the stairs, her sniper rifle smoking from the barrel. _Good to have you back buddy._ I wiped my knife on the red stripe of my armor before putting in back in its sheath.

"Not that I'm ungrateful, but who are you?" I had lost track of the Quarian in the blur of the fight, but she had my attention once more by holding a shotgun to my face.

"Easy. My name is John Shepard. I'm a soldier with the Alliance. You need some protection from Saren's men and I need the evidence you have. Now if you don't mind?" I checked the knife wound before applying an overly ample amount medi-gel on it. My leg was already starting to go stiff. "_SSV Normandy_, this is Shepard. Come on Joker you cocky little bastard tell me you hear me!"

"_This is cocky little bastard Joker Moreau. What can I do for our glamorous CO?"_

"Get Chakwas and Bravo down here now! We got what we need but I got clipped. Heh-heh." I groaned. The numbness was starting to set in. "Better tell them to hurry or Anderson's CO is gonna be a gimp."

"_Damn. I'm tracing your signal now. They should be there in ASAFP. Joker out._"

I nearly collapsed on a crate. "Shepard! You hurt?" Ashley came running down the stairs. "Shit. What happened?"

"The Turian there," I motioned to 'skulls' lying dead on the ground. "Stuck me with my own blade in my hip. Cocksucker!" I groaned again, my toes wouldn't wiggle in my boot. _I'm gonna lose my fucking leg._

"I take it she's the one we've been looking for? And do you mind putting that gun down girl? Had enough of being shot at for a few days."

"Yeah. Her name is... sorry, what's your name?"

"Tali. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. And I don't know who any of you are so I don't think so." If she was as stubborn as Williams then it was likely one of them would shoot each other in a minute.

"Look, would you two just calm the fuck down? The rest of my team and Bravo will be here in a second. We can provide you protection so just... take it easy will you? And Ashley, she has information that'll prove Saren was guilty. _No_ shooting her."

Kaidan, Garrus, Wrex, Bravo team and Chakwas came down the stairwell less than a minute later. When selecting the crew for the _SR1_ Anderson had asked my assistance in selecting members for the second ground team. "Everyone, this is Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. She is the one who is going to help save us."

"So who are you?" She asked the large, motley crew that was there to protect her. Though she was oddly looking, well, acting to be more precise since I could only barely make out basic features behind her purple-pink mask.

"Captain Annabell Keyes. Bravo team number leader." She then introduced the rest of her team, Second Lieutenants Sharron Beck and Jennifer Rhys and Ensign Aaron Reinhardt.

"Excuse me," Chakwas interjected. "While I do love a good meet around the campfire, could someone explain to me what exactly happened to the commander?"

I recounted exactly what happened with the Turian. After I finished, Chakwas said that I was as much of an idiot when it came to fights as Jenkins. "Would you quit squirming so I can fix your leg? If I don't do this right we'll have to cut it off."

"All I need is a patch to last a few hours. We can do the fine work back on the Normandy."

"If I don't do this right and right _now_ there won't be a later for your left leg."

"Fine." We had been sitting there for what I felt was far too long. When Saren's men failed to report back he'd likely send another team. And this would be the first place they'd look. "Keyes, I'm putting you in charge. You and the others take Ms. Zorah here to the embassy. She gets there no matter what. Am I understood?"

"Don't worry about us sir. We'll get here there. Rhys, you stay here with the commander."

"Belay that! _All _of you are going. I'll follow soon as I'm able."

"Well I don't care much what you think Shepard." Wrex said. "But I don't follow orders. You found me a good fight so I will stay here."

"Fine. But will the rest of you _go_?!" They began advancing by leapfrog making sure Tali remained in center of the group and in their sights at all time.

Chakwas inflicted another sharp jab with her instruments. "Ow! I thought you were trying to _keep_ my leg attached to the rest of me."

"Quit complaining." She replied. "I've only barely begun to repair the damage. You tore the ligaments, cut through the nerves. Because of that the bone is hanging on only by your muscle mass."

"Doesn't look like a lot of muscle to me."

"I out ran you Wrex. Or do you not remember that part?"

"Heh-heh-heh. I was busy cleaning up the mess you left me. Or do you not remember that part?"

"We had a time crunch. OOWW! What the fuck are you doing to me doc?!"

"Retying your ligaments. It's painful work at the best of times. Ideally you'd be sedated.

"Well if you, OW! Dammit! If you keep this shit up I'll demand Wrex knock me out." He gave yet another hearty laugh at that.

"Honestly commander, I've never seen a bigger baby."

"Just hurry it up." I was quickly getting anxious. I knew Keyes from the several courses back in Rio. I decided to send a message to Anderson and inform him of the good news. _[Captain, I think we have the proof we need. Bravo and the rest of Alpha are already en route to the embassies. I was held up. I'll depart for the Council chambers and meet you there as soon as I'm able.]_

"It will be done when it is done. Rushing me won't make it go any quicker."

"Fine." I hated it but she had a point. For as much as we had advanced medicine, somethings just couldn't be rushed; or rather shouldn't.

"By the way, I know what your knife is made out of. How is it that your leg wasn't ripped out?"

I sighed, rubbing my hairline. "About that... there are a few things about my family history you should know."

* * *

**ABLE/NOVEMBER:**

I wasn't sure whether or not to end the chapter here but eh... It seemed like a good end mark and I'm a little stuck on how to proceed on the next point. :/

But on the bright side, two updates in under three weeks! Celebrate!


	8. Chapter 8: Evidence

**ABLE/NOVEMBER:**

_I can't believe I actually got three done in a month! Damn! I'm wrapping up finals and have a week of break after that so I might (stressing the "might") be able to get another out at the beginning of next month.  
_

_Love you all and please feel free to comment on all your feelings about this: what parts you liked, what you thought could use improvements, was it too long, etc. The more you talk to me the better the next chapter will be!_

* * *

**Chapter 8**

**Evidence**

Bravo and most of Alpha squad along the Turian investigator had taken the most direct route they could back to the human embassy. Nobody said a word, but no one seemed to have an issue with the silence.

Keyes was surprised that Shepard had called in Chakwas. He was probably _the_ toughest bastard she knew. Even better than her. He was actually the reason she had initially washed from the N7 program: he outlasted her during the oxygen survival challenge. Seeing Shepard being incapacitated, even temporarily had her unnerved. But it was a ten on one. And hand-to-hand no less.

The elevator door opened up near the Citadel embassy. She and the rest of Bravo secured the immediate area. "Alenko, you and the others are safe to come up. Beck, Reinhardt, you go up and inform the Captain and Udina that Quarian with the evidence against Saren will be here momentarily."

"Aye sir." He intelligently avoided a salute in case a sniper was keeping watch.

"Jenn, I want you to keep those hawk's eyes sharp."

She smirked at her CO's comment. "Six C-Sec officers plus nine others with personal firearms close enough to be a possible threat. And from this position, I'd say there are around two dozen possible good places across the lake and in the buildings. Unfortunately, I'm not over there to give you a better assessment _and_ the embassy office is pretty exposed."

"Heh. Remind me not to play chess with you Jenn."

"Two things Captain. One: Don't ever play chess with me."

"Funny. What's the other thing?"

"The other elevator just arrived."

Keyes turned on the subcutaneous communication device implanted behind her jaw. "Commander Shepard, Capitan Anderson can you hear me?"

"_Anderson here. Your messengers just arrived."_

"_This is Shepard. Solid copy. I take it our purple package just arrived."_

"Affirmative commander. How's the leg?"

"_Just finished patching it. Should I join you or just head for the tower?_"

"_Udina is demanding some explanations for your actions down in the wards. You better get up here. Fast._"

"_Better get a shuttle. It'll take us a while."_

"Not a good call. If they already sent one assassin team. Better get here on your own."

"_Good point Keyes. Be there in ten."_

* * *

I walked into Udina's office in the embassies. Captain Anderson, Alenko, Williams, Garrus, Tali and the rest of Bravo team was already there. "I'm glad to see you finally join us Shepard. You have any idea what kind of trouble you're causing? Bar fights in Chora's Den followed by an all out assaults across the wards?! Just what the hell are you trying to do?! And who is this Quarian?"

"How about you wait five seconds before jumping down my fucking throat so I can explain! She has evidence against Saren. You want to see what it is or do you want to keep yelling?"

"Very well. What's this information that you have miss?"

"My name is Tali. And here." She had about as much dislike for Udina as pretty much everyone else did. She pulled up her omni-tool and an audio clip began to play.

"Eden Prime was a major victory." The voice clearly belonged to Saren. That and Anderson's and Williams' fists curling was a secondary giveaway. "The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit."_ Conduit? The hell is that?_

"Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but how did you get this data." I asked her.

"I got lucky. I was out on my pilgrimage when I came across a lone Geth. I disabled it and acquired part of its data core."

"I thought Geth fried their memory cores when they were destroyed."

"I'm a Quarian." She replied. "We built them so we know them best. If we're careful and very lucky, one of us can sometimes salvage part of a memory core."

"Forgive me, I'm pretty sure the rest of that was more important, but what was it you said you were doing when you found it?" Ashley asked.

"It's a Quarian right of passage. We depart from our homeships and return once we've found something of value."

"Okay. My questions are over."

"There's something else you should hear."

She resumed the audio file, this time a different voice. Female this time. "And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."

"Reapers? Why does that name sound familiar?"

"According to the Geth, the Reapers were an ancient race of sentient machines. They were responsible for the destruction of the Protheans fifty-thousand years ago. That is assuming you can believe what goes on in a Geth's processors."

"GHAAHH!" The vision from the beacon hit me again. Not as strongly, but still a nail in the head large enough to cause me to double over.

"Commander! Are you alright?" Ashley helped me straighten back up. "Another vision?"

"Yeah. It's over. And I think the Geth were right. After they took out the Protheans the Reapers retreated either to dark space or went into hibernation."

"While all this idol speculation is fascinating, the Council will simply ignore all of these Reaper myths. Now get moving." Udina left for the door again. "I will set up another hearing. I would advise you not keep them waiting this time."

"Why was he so rude to you? Especially after you got him exactly what he needed." Tali asked.

"Clearly you don't have much experience with politics kid." Ashley said. "Don't worry about it. They're pretty much all like that. Especially him."

"If I start limping now, I should make it somewhere about the time Udina sends the good news."

"You all go ahead. I'll stay behind with the commander." Williams offered.

The others left, the door closing behind them as I began limping towards the door.

I had insisted that Chakwas keep repairs to my leg for now to a simple patch. And I was paying for it now; the pain in my hip was starting to feel like the knife was back in. Only a few millimeters for now, but eventually it would return to the full length soon if the increasing rate of pain remained steady.

"Williams, not that I'm ungrateful but..."

"Why am I suddenly being so nice? I've actually been wondering the same thing."

"Think it was just tension back on Eden Prime?"

"No. We were still half wanting to kill each other on the Normandy."

"You know, of all the things that have happened over the last few days, and _this_ is the creepiest thing that's coming to our minds?"

She could tell my limp was getting worse but due to my own weight plus that of our combined armor she was starting to have a hard time holding me up. "I said it before and I'm going to say it again, you are one heavy bastard. Sir. Hold on." Sitting down on a bench halfway between the embassy and the council elevator. She handed me her sniper rifle to me.

"Broke my leg in the middle of a training mission in the Cascade mountain ranges of the Northern American Nations. Viper sniper rifles make good substitutes for crutches when you're needing something quick."

Our pace increased considerably once I started using the Viper as a crutch, keeping hold of the rifle's butt the cooling coil and barrel both bracing against the ground for enhanced stability. She was right though, it worked quite well.

It took us a while longer to get to the tower so we were able to carry on a few different conversations.

"So who exactly was that... woman you met at Chora's Den?"

"What were you planning on saying? 'Whore' perhaps."

"Thought I'd try and have some tact for once. Sits as well as a sweaty sock in my mouth. So who is she?"

"A good friend of every N7 operative. She's a smuggler who has as many ears to the ground as the Shadow Broker does. Probably more."

"A smuggler? Why not just arrest her and throw her barely covered ass in jail?"

I chuckled at her response. "You know, I said the same thing to one of my training officers. She alone has been responsible for more good intel that has lead to more successful missions for our operatives than the entire intelligence division of the Alliance."

"But I still don't get why she gets off with such a free pass." We had arrived at the elevator that would take us directly to the Council chambers.

"Because it's all low-end stuff. Any weapons she carries don't pack more punch than an Predator pistol. And the rest of it is pretty much all basic food and necessities. The occasional blue sand shipment, but that's the worst of it."

"She's a sand dealer!? You know _do_ know what that crap does don't you?"

"_Blue__sand_ Williams. It's the flip-side of red sand. Think marijuana that's strong enough for biotics."

"Damn. This galaxy full of some weird shit."

The door on to the chambers opened and we repeated the procedure. The stairs were quite difficult though. Anderson was waiting for us just below the podium for the "lower members" of the galactic community.

"Plan to make it a habit of showing up late Shepard? Come on. The Quarian is presenting the evidence right now."

"_Eden Prime was a major victory. The beacon has brought us one step closer to finding the conduit."_

"_And one step closer to the return of the Reapers."_

"You wanted proof? There it is!" Udina was being as subtle and tactful as a tactical nuke for once. Well, as tactful anyways. The man was never subtle.

"This evidence is irrefutable." It was... surprising that Sparatus was the one who so quickly spoke given the last time; he nearly dismissed us out of hand for claiming that a Spectre had gone rouge. "Saren will be stripped of his Spectre status and all efforts made to bring him in for his crimes."

"I recognize the other voice. It belongs to Matriarch Benezia."

"Who is she?"

"Matriarchs are Asari who have entered the final stage of their life and have powerful biotic abilities. What I do not understand is why she would have joined with Saren. Matriarchs are expected to lead our people towards the future. Benezia has a formidable following. If she has indeed allied herself with Saren it will make her a valuable ally."

"I am more interested in these Reapers. What do we know of them?"

"Virtually nothing. The Geth believe they were responsible for the fall of the Prothean empire 50,000 years ago. They were sentient machines who when finished, left." I thought it would be better than telling them the truth. They wouldn't believe it. "The Geth view them as Gods; and Saren the herald of their return."

"The Conduit is the key to bringing them back. Saren is searching for it. That's why he attacked Eden Prime."

"Do we even know what it is?" Valern seemed to be looking at the larger picture. Something Salarians were well known for doing to the point of being annoying.

"It may be exactly as it sounds, new propulsion method; wormhole generator of some sort. Or it could simply be a mistranslation and be a coffee maker. Truth is it doesn't matter. If Saren is looking for it he'll kill everyone in his way."

"Listen to yourself! Sentient machines that eliminated all life in the galaxy? Why did they leave? Where did they go? How come we've found no trace of their existence? If they were real there would have been some evidence."

"I tried to warn you about Saren and you refused to listen. We need to deal with them."

"This is different. We are all in agreement that Saren is using the Geth. But we do not know why is he is allied with them."

Valern then added in. This was all too familiar. "The Reapers are obviously just a myth. One he is using to manipulate the Geth to his will."

"I've seen them! The beacon on Eden Prime showed me what happened the last time they came! They culled the galaxy, taking the Protheans and all those with them!"

"Saren is now a rouge agent and on the run. He no longer has the resources of the Spectres."

"That's not good enough! You know he's hiding somewhere in the Traverse!With your fleet you could clear out the Geth and prevent any more attacks on our colonies. Send them in!"

Valern balked at the notion Udina was putting forth. "A fleet can not be charged with capturing a single individual."

"It may start a war with the Terminus systems. We won't be dragged into a galactic war over a few dozen human colonies."

"You hypocritical racists! You demand we follow your rules to be part of the community but every time we have asked for your help you've discarded us like a dead carcass!"

"Shepard's right. I'm sick of this council and it's anti-human bull-"

"I believe I have a solution to our problems. One that does not require fleets or armies." Tevos offered.

"No! Humanity isn't ready to take on the mantle of responsibility of the Spectres."

I managed to hold my anger back, pulling on the little political skill I had. "Do you honestly want to go down this road Councilor? A Turian Spectre murders thousands of humans and you then immediately reject the motion to put a human in the Spectres for the first time? The press will have one hell of a field day with you."

He started sneering so I pushed harder. "Why they might even start making allegations that you're working _with_ him. And if word were to get back to your leadership of this they may just replace you. Think of the damage it would do the Turian Hierarchy."

"Enough! You have made your point." Sparatus gave up.

"Commander Shepard - step forward."

Those in the chambers began to focus in; they could tell something big was about to happen.

Tevos spoke first. "It is the decision of this council that you be granted all the power and privileges of the Special Tactics and Reconnaissance branch of the Citadel."

Valern continued from there. "Spectres are not trained, but chosen. Individuals forged in the fire of service and battle. Those whose actions have elevated themselves above rank and file." _Great job with the last one._

Tevos then resumed. Apparently these are form speeches. I really shouldn't have been that surprised. "Spectres are an ideal: a symbol. The embodiment of courage, determination and self-reliance. They are the right hand of the Citadel, instruments of our will." _Guess I won't actually do much work for them._

Sparatus finished the over-glamorized speech. "Spectres bear a great burden. They are the protectors of galactic peace. Both our first and last line of defense. They safety of the galaxy is theirs to uphold."

"You are the first human Spectre Commander. This is a great accomplishment for you and your entire species."

"Thank you councilors." I bowed my head slightly. The only respect for most politicians I had met was... well none actually. But behaving like a spoiled ass wouldn't do anyone any good; especially now. "If I may be so bold, I request that my first mission be to hunt down the traitor Saren." I hated politics. It astounded me that people couldn't just do the right thing without all this red tape bullshit.

"You have no need to make such a request. You are to head for the Traverse after him. He is now a fugitive wanted for high treason. Use all necessary force to capture him and bring him to justice or eliminate him. The choice is yours." My gut told me that I should put a bullet in his head on sight, but he needed to properly answer for what he did: take him alive. If I could. Though I wouldn't loose any sleep if it ended in him hitting the ground as long as I got to do it myself.

"Do you have any current leads on Saren's current location?"

"We will contact you as the situation develops." I had been in the service long enough to know that really meant "We have nothing. But maybe we'll look into it if we can be persuaded." In politics, that probably meant that "we don't give enough of a shit to tell you even _if_ we knew."

"This meeting of the council is adjourned."

Anderson shook my hand congratulating me. "Thank you sir. I won't let you down."

"We've got a lot to do Shepard. You'll need a ship, crew, supplies."

"You'll also have access to extra weapons and equipment through the Spectre department in the C-Sec Academy. Just go down there and speak with the requisitions officer."

"Anderson come with me. I'll need your help to get the logistics cleared up." The two then left. This was incredible. My own ship! Aside from a small cargo freighter I didn't really care for much. Besides, the smallness and day-to-day would actually let me get to know my crew.

"I can't believe it. We get exactly what he wants and he doesn't even thank you." Ashley said. She sounded as tired of Udina as everyone else. "What an ass."

"He's a politician. You expect different? Come on. Let's go get some guns."

"Guns? Let the little one and I go get them. I know guns and she knows how to kill Geth better than you."

"Sorry Wrex we all go together. Call it a congratulations shopping spree."

"Hey I'm down for that! Always preferred buying guns over clothes anyways."

I couldn't resist. She set it up too easily. "So where do you put your other weapons Williams?"

Bravo team elected to go back to the ship and go back to sleep. I did wake them after three hours, so they earned it.

The Turian sales clerk at C-Sec was very polite to all of us, though dealing with the first human Spectre might have had something to do with that. He showed us the back room inventory of small arms. It was actually rather beautiful. Omni-tool upgrades and every gun under the sun I knew of plus a few extra.

Garrus got a large M-99 Saber, stroking it and calling it a few names in his native language that I assumed one reserved for loved ones. Sabers were heavy bastards but they packed one shit-ton of a punch. Wrex on the other hand went for an M-76 Revenant which was almost an automatic version of the Saber in terms of direct firepower.

He also purchased an additional shotgun, an M-300 Claymore. Williams wanted one as well but when informed the kickback would tear her arm off she elected for a Black Widow sniper rifle. She and Garrus then began comparing notes on how to most effectively increase their weapon's efficiency.

Interestingly, both Kaidan and Tali elected to keep the weapons they had. I think Kaidan didn't want to add any more to the already substantial bill and Tali... well I guess she felt a little out of place, so she instead purchased a Nexus mark IV omni-tool and a replacement Hydra armor. I insisted though on paying for it in addition to an upgrade to mark VII.

Kaidan just couldn't believe it that I picked up the tab. "You really don't mind buying all of this for us Shepard?"

"No. I don't have anything to do on leave, so it just piles up. Alliance pays for all replacement and upgrades I need normally."

"Really? So exactly how much money _do_ you have?" Williams couldn't fathom that I didn't do anything aside from the job.

"I don't know. A few hundred thousand credits. Milla has the exact number somewhere. Hold on." I ran the new numbers by her, a total coming up after a few seconds. "After this, little over 400,00 Alliance Credits."

"Wheew! Hey, can I have a few extra credits for dinner?" I knew she was joking but my instincts still kicked in raising an eyebrow at her. "Kidding."

My omni-tool pinged twice. One was a message from AJ congratulating me on becoming a Spectre. The other was from Anderson telling me and the others to gather the team at the Normandy.

We took the tubes back to dock 93, needing two elevators again. Ashley, Kaidan and I were on the first elevator, the others took the second. I thought it might be a good idea to keep them around. Tali would have to remain on the run from Saren's men, Garrus didn't seem like he'd simply let the investigation go. He liked finishing what he started. As for Wrex, he liked fights and I didn't want to get between him and the massive fight that we were about to get into.

The doors opened on the dock arm, the Normandy still looking sleek and beautiful. Anderson and Udina were standing next to the docking arm that connected right behind the cockpit on Deck One. "I have good news for you commander. Captian Anderson is stepping down as commander of the Normandy. The ship is now yours."

"You need a ship that's yours. She's quick, quiet and you know the crew."

"Sir what's really going on?"

"As a Spectre you can't be answering to someone on your own ship."

"It's your ship sir. With all due respect, I can't and won't assume command of it like this."

"The paperwork has already gone through. She's yours Shepard. I know you'll take good care of her and the crew. Just get Saren."

"Sir, yes sir!" I saluted him. He had already made the decision.

"Just remember Shepard, you represent _all_ of humanity now, not just the Alliance. Don't screw this up Commander."

"Your a politician. Your job is to clean up whatever messes I make."

"Not the answer I was looking for. Just remember, you answered to us long before you answered to the Council."

"Noted. Now if you don't mind, I'll need to speak with Captain Anderson alone."

"Just get underway within the hour Commander. Time is of the essence." He left on the same elevator as team two arrived on.

"Everyone go on board and wait for me in the briefing room. I'll see you there in a few minutes." I continued with the Captian. "So why are you really doing this sir?"

He sighed heavily. "I was in your position years ago. Saren was in charge of my oversight into the Spectres. We were investigating illegal AI research on Camala. We were to infiltrate the facility, grab the researcher and leave. We separated and went in. He detonated a massive explosion in the eezo refinery as a distraction."

"Makes sense. You needed a diversion. Would have drawn off nearly every guard."

"This went way beyond a simple diversion. The explosion caused toxic chemicals to break loose into the air, nearly everyone in the nearby city. The final death toll was over one thousand. Mostly women and children. He's a monster; no care for innocents. He'd slaughter ten thousand in a heartbeat if he thought it would get the mission done."

"Shit. So why wasn't he expelled already?"

"When he filed his report to the Council he said that I alerted the perimeter guards _forcing_ him to destroy the refinery. But I saw the look in his eyes as it burnt down: he likes the violence."

"So then I take it you don't think it's a good idea to bring him in alive."

"The right thing? Yes. The smart thing? After what we saw on Eden Prime, no. Not anymore."

"So, do we have any more leads? Or should I just start chasing my tail?"

"Heh-heh. Well there are a few options. We've lost contact with our colony on Feros. Last report we got indicated there might be a Geth incursion. There's also Matriarch Benezia."

"We know where she is? Why not go to ground with Saren?"

"It's likely she has, but she has a daughter who graduated in Prothean archaeological studies, name is Liara T'Soni. She was somewhere in the Artemis Tau cluster on a research dig. I take it our mutual informant hasn't sent you anything."

"Just to congratulate me. Though she's probably looking to get a drink out of me before telling me that she has _any_ information. You know how she is. Hell, you're the reason she wasn't thrown in jail."

"What can I say? I've always had a soft spot for you new Seven Rooks. Now go on. Joker already started the pre-flight."

I went back on the Normandy and saluted him yet again before the door closed and the decon procedure began. The voice was politely degrading, insisting on the occupants remaining perfectly still even when they were already doing so.

"Joker, we ready to go?"

"Yeah. Hey I heard what happened to Captain Anderson. I mean, the man survives a hundred battles and gets taken down by back room politics. Total bullshit. Should watch your back Commander. This goes sideways they'll probably lobby for your head to be severed before they drag you to the gallows. Just sayin'."

"This is wrong. Captain Anderson should be the one leading this mission not me. Feels like I'm stealing the ship from him."

"The Captain got screwed no arguments from me but the whole crew is behind you one hundred percent. Plus that you know, extra ten to twenty that COs always demand. I can put you on the pipes if you want to say something to them."

I pushed the glowing yellow button on his right turning on the ship wide communications system. _Should say something to get them pumped up, take their minds off of how difficult this will be. For a bit anyways._ "Attention all hands, this is Commander Shepard speaking. Captain Anderson has placed me in command of the Normandy in light of our current mission. I wish I could say it's an honor, but the Captain was relieved of command for the same reasons he chose me. Our mission is straight forward: find and take down Saren. He was the man behind the attack on Eden Prime. The Citadel Council wants this kept quiet and would continue to believe everything is as usual.

"We will not stand by idly. He has gathered a Geth army and is hiding somewhere in the Traverse. We will go in and take him down! Captain Anderson chose each of you himself because he wanted and believed you are the best and so do I. Saren knows we're coming, but he doesn't know what. And that is the finest crew assembled.

"Stand to your duties and prepare to cast off! Shepard out." There was a cheer held across the ship, almost reverberating through the deck plates from below from the other crew members.

"Well said sir! Sounds like everyone is ready to kick some ass."

"Then ease us out of docks and set a course for Feros, best speed."

"Aye, aye!" The view out the window spun as Joker pulled the ship out. _That has __**got**__ to be an illegal maneuver this close to the docks! _"Hey what does your new Spectre stuff cover for subordinates? I've wanted to do something like that in real life since I graduated flight school." _Oh yeah, that was definitely illegal._ He spun the ship along the dorsal and blasted us out at full speed, less than fifty meters away from the docking pier; the Citadel's clamps were probably missed by mere inches.

I walked down to the back of CIC, several crew members gave a 'oo-yah', most simply saluted quickly and returned to their duties. "Pressley, I'd like you to join me in the debriefing room. There'll be some duty changes and I'd like you there."

* * *

**ABLE/NOVEMBER:**

_So there we are, Shepard has been made a Spook (generic term for black ops agents that the government disavows the existence of) AND gets put in command of the SR1 all in one chapter! And yes, we're off to Feros. Now you may be asking "Why? Why not go after Liara first?" Well the reason is simple: Liara is just on a dig. No one knows she's in trouble and there's an active Geth presence on Feros. Any soldier worth his fatigues would reason that where there are troops, there might be a general (see Benezia and Saren). _

_If any of the characters are feeling off to you please let me know, Shepard of course being the exception._

_I would also like to clarify to some of you, Shepard is not intended to be a renegade Shepard but a hardened one. He _is _compassionate and caring to his crew and friends but past experience has made it easier for him to be abrasive and keep his distance to others. As for the politics, if you've taken a look at my profile page you'll see the reason for it: I hate politics. And let's face it, EVERYONE, even the player who went for the most renegade Shepard they could wouldn't put Udina in charge. The guy is a complete ass but I digress._


End file.
